


Treasures in Egypt

by Accidental_Ducky



Series: The Trouble With Mummies [1]
Category: The Mummy (1999)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-20
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-06-09 15:18:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 35,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6912535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Accidental_Ducky/pseuds/Accidental_Ducky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AJ was the biggest skeptic of them all where Hamunaptra is concerned, but she's dragged into her husband's adventures when she speaks about the legend one night. How was she to know that it wasn't just a legend and that there really was a cursed mummy out for revenge and his true love? All she can say is that she wasn't prepared for all the shenanigans that followed. Henderson/OC</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. At the Beginning

It's weird being back in Cairo after spending seven years in the States, the circumstances surrounding AJ's return as dark and dismal as the ancient tombs her uncle used to drag her to. He died four weeks ago, but AJ couldn't bring herself to leave Cairo yet; she'd visited his burial place once the funeral was over and found herself missing the city. His death wasn't unexpected and the fact that it had happened while he was absorbed in his work seemed to be some cruel cosmic joke. He had always preached the need of caution, but he had let himself be distracted by hieroglyphics when a thick slab above had come loose and crushed him.

Alexander Jibade is now with AJ's parents in the afterlife and she's stuck here with living people that tend to get on her nerves faster than a conman could take a wallet. He'd raised her after her parents were killed, him and two other adults that he worked with, the Carnahans. They're dead too, but their children are alive and well unless something has happened since the funeral.

As fast as possible, AJ maneuvers her way through the crowded streets, ignoring venders shouting out their wares and the like, her destination just up ahead. It was a museum she'd spent most of her weekends in after the digging season ended, a few vague memories including her parents when they were vacationing away from Yorkshire.

She couldn't remember anything of where she'd been born and her uncle hated to leave Cairo except for excavating, but she hadn't worked up the courage to go and visit her cousins yet. Sure, she'd write to them several times a month, one in particular, but she knew they understood why she couldn't go to Yorkshire again. Millie understood most of AJ's dilemmas and had even promised to visit Texas once she'd returned to the States.

That was another point of this little trip away from Houston, her husband and his group of friends had heard of Hamunaptra and decided they should all head out into the desert and find the lost city. AJ blamed the spooky feeling of a campfire, it made her think of the old legends her uncle had told her as a child and so she repeated his favorite back to the listeners. Allah above, that was stupid. Now she was stuck in Egypt with a group of half-cocked Americans, a Hungarian man of questionable repute, and a British Egyptologist that thought she had no reason to accompany them.

Bastard.

She shakes the thoughts of annoying men out of her head as she enters the museum, easily making her way past the tourists and glass-incased relics towards the back where only employees or special people were allowed. The workers knew who she was after seeing her there several times in the past few weeks and only nodded in recognition when she swept past them. She stopped only when she reached where they stored the mummies, the torchlight casting flickering shadows on the walls.

She found her friends at the base of one of the statues, Jonathan and Evy both examining a map with wide eyes. "Should I even ask what it is you're doing," AJ inquires with raised brows, laughing when Evy springs up and shoves the map in her face.

"What do you make of that," she asked excitedly, her smile wide and her eyes glittering. AJ takes the map from her and moves closer to a torch, relying on the finicky light to help her make out the pictures and hieroglyphics. She wasn't too sure about most of it since she'd never bothered to learn ancient Egyptian, but she did take note of a familiar marking near the bottom corner. She looks up sharply, the map lowered and a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"Where did you get this?"

"Jonathan found it on a dig in Thebes." AJ doubted that with every fiber of her being considering this is a man who once showed up to a job interview drunk, but she knew where this map led. "What do you think?" She shakes her head and hands it back to her friend with a sigh.

"I think you've found a map to Hamunaptra." _And I think we just gained two new members on the hunt for the rumored city_. It wasn't a thought she cherished, certainly not since it would mean spending hours under the sun with Jonathan's numerous complaints. "Have you shown you know who yet?" Evy makes a face at that and Jonathan slowly rises to join them, scratching at the back of his head.

"Jonathan just showed it to me and I'm afraid I've made quite a mess in the library, so the Curator won't be happy to see me this soon." AJ rolls her eyes, sending up a mental prayer that they weren't about to ask what she thought they were. "But he doesn't hate you too much..."

"Perhaps you could just," Jonathan makes a sliding gesture with his hand," push it under his office door and wait for any exclamations about the correct dates?"

" _Or_ ," AJ states, emphasizing the word," the three of us could go in there together and use the sheer numbers against him?" The two Carnahan siblings share a look, communicating with only a few gestures before shrugging and meeting AJ's gaze again. "Is it a plan, then?"

"Better than no plan at all." Together, like they had when they were younger, the three of them make their way through the museum to the offices on the opposite side of the large building, stopping in front of the last door of the long hallway. They had stood like this before, arm-in-arm and almost trembling as they awaited the person on the other side to open the door and admit them entry. After a tentative knock, the Curator's voice rings out and they push the door open, entering single file with Evy at the front.

"What is it, Miss Carnahan," he asks without looking up from the documents spread in front of him on the desk. It always shocked AJ to see how old this man has grown in just seven years, graying hair partially hidden beneath a red fez, wrinkles more pronounced around his eyes and along his hands.

"Um, my brother found something we think you'd be interested in seeing," Evy manages, always the brave one where confrontation was concerned. She's always been the spokesperson when it was important and that hadn't changed since they were lumped together as mere children. Only the sound of the map being unfolded drew Terrence Bey's gaze up to them.

"Another fake he bought off a street merchant?" Jonathan scoffs at that, but doesn't comment since it was the usual train of thought whenever he brought an artifact in for Evy to present. Bey motions for the trio to approach his desk, taking the map from Evy and spreading it open on his desk as the Carnahans looked at it over his shoulder and AJ stayed on the other side of the desk.

"I don't think it is." Evy was excited again, all nerves washed away as she gestures at the map. "I think this leads to Hamunaptra. You see the cartouche there? It's the official royal seal of Seti I, I'm sure of it."

"Two questions," Jonathan interrupts as he begins pacing," who the hell was Seti I, and was he rich?"

"The richest Pharaoh out of all of them," AJ informs him quietly, allowing her eyes to wander around the room. Nothing much had changed since the last time she'd been here, a few more things hung on the wall and a crayon drawing framed on a bookshelf with a child's signature in the bottom corner of it. She moves over to get a better look of it, finding it to contain three crooked pyramids and a colorful butterfly fluttering past blue skies.

"I'm rather beginning to like this fellow." AJ gives him a smile over her shoulder, their excitement infecting her as well, though the Curator looked as though they'd handed him a petition for women's rights rather than a map. AJ had never cared much for him, he was far too strict for her liking.

"I dated the map on the way here," Evy continued," it's almost three thousand years old and if you look at the hieratic here... It's Hamunaptra." AJ's eyes close as Evy confirms her suspicion, beginning to think she's been cursed with a bunch of treasure-seeking idiots to claim as her family.

"The last I checked," Bey interrupts," we were scholars, not treasure hunters chasing after myths. Even Miss Jibade knew that and she hardly ever paid attention to her studies."

"Hey," AJ snaps, spinning in her heel to glare at him," I paid enough attention to pass all my classes, I'll have you know, and I've been married for five years." She holds up her left hand and wiggles her fingers to emphasize the small, golden band on her ring finger. "You were at the wedding, so I don't know how you keep forgetting." He rejects her American husband every chance he got and she was convinced he did it out of spite alone.

"And where has that education gotten you, Alexandria? You moved to America for college and ended up marrying the tourist you met here two years previous." AJ scoffs, crossing her arms over her chest and looking away from him. "If you know so much, then why don't you tell us the bedtime story your uncle used to recite to you?"

"Hamunaptra doesn't exist, my uncle knew that—"

"And yet he spent hours here doing research about it." She keeps her gaze on the floor, focusing on the black and white shoes she wore instead of the Curator's contemptuous expression.

"Yes, he spent hours here, but he did it with the hope of providing for me. Something you wouldn't know about." His cheeks flush a dark red and Jonathan quickly intervenes before Bey could begin to shout at her.

"We've all heard the stories," he says quickly," about how the entire necropolis was rigged to sink into the sand on Pharaoh's command. It was designed to bury an entire chamber filled with treasure because if Seti couldn't have it, then no one could."

"As the American's would say," Bey declares scornfully, holding the map closer to the lit candle on his desk," it's all fairy tales and hokum— Oh my goodness!" The frail papyrus caught fire and Bey wasted no time in flinging it to the ground, Evy and Jonathan dropping to kill the flames before the entire map was ruined.

"You've burnt it! You've burnt off the part of the lost city!" The knot in AJ's stomach loosens and she could breathe easier knowing the map was useless, that old legend of a mummy's curse never failing to make her afraid.

"Good," AJ murmurs, walking out of the office," it was never meant to be found anyway."


	2. Arriving at the Port

Giza Port was bustling the next morning when AJ and her group arrived, the sound of merchants calling out their wares making AJ grin. _This_ was familiar to her, she missed the constant noise that wasn't all honking cars or men grumbling about their crops; people really lived here, they had no idea of personal space, only of providing for their families.

"And you grew up with this," her husband grumbles as they make their way through the thick crowds towards the barge.

"Yes, Lawrence," she confirms, grinning wider as he rolls his eyes. He hated his given name, believing it too stuffy and the nickname that accompanied it too goofy, it was why he was often addressed by his surname. "Don't worry, you get used to it after a time." He looks down at her with raised brows, making sure to keep a hand on the small of her back to keep from losing her.

"I'll believe that when I see it."

"I got used to Houston, didn't I?"

"Henderson!" The shout had come from behind them and the couple turn to find one of their companions running their way the best that he could. Tall, skinny, and bespectacled, Burns had to be one of the sweetest people AJ's met thus far. He normally had a smile ready and he was always happy to watch Tucker so that AJ and Lawrence could go out for dinner without the baby crying. "This is crazy, right?"

"Try tellin' that to her," Lawrence remarks, sending his wife an _I told you so_ smirk. She just rolls her eyes with a smile at the two men, leaving them behind to talk while she continued forward. They would all be spending a lot of time together soon, but it would be no different than their current living arrangement anyway. Lawrence's father owned land that was rich in oil, so the two men behind her and Daniels all worked and supervised it, which led to several dinners where Burns and Daniels just collapsed on AJ's nice carpet.

"Good morning, Mrs. Henderson," the Egyptologist greets when she finally breaks through the crowd closer to the barge. She pauses long enough to give the man a polite nod before continuing up the gangway, careful not to let the small heel of her shoe get caught on one of the thin, wooden strips beneath her feet.

If she were being honest, she was glad of the more freeing clothes they allowed in America; all the colors and beading that was encouraged instead of having to wear a hijab in the bright sunlight. She's sure her husband wouldn't mind if she did, especially after his jaw hit the floor of their hotel room this morning when she walked out of the bathroom in a white dress that stopped before her knees with short straps, a white, fringed shawl to wear over her shoulders, and a champagne-colored headband with velvet ties and beads that stood out nicely against her brown locks.

She liked the outfit and styles churning out of New York, liked being able to breathe in the stifling heat, so she'd made it clear that her clothing was one of the few things she'd fight with Lawrence over. He could take their son hunting when Tucker reached a reasonable age, he could trek in mud as long as he made an attempt to clean it up, and she would cook most of the meals, but she would _not_ listen to him rant about her clothes. No way, no how; she'd hit him with a pan before that happened.

Beni Gabor, their so-called guide for this expedition, was waiting near the railing, AJ studiously ignoring him as she moved a few feet away to see out over the crowds gathered at Giza Port. From her vantage point she could see everything, from little boys running around selling King Tut dolls for three pounds to grown adults wearing the outfits said mummy inspired; her uncle had been barely a mile away when Tut was discovered and Lord Carnarvon had called him over to help document the finds. He'd been so happy about it and every letter she received from him for nearly three months afterwards was just a detailed list of everything that had been inside the tomb, along with sketches.

"You alright, hon," Lawrence asks as he and the others join her, his hands fitting snugly against her hips as she leans back against his chest. He was always so warm no matter what the temperature, she would always be able to snuggle against him for the heat.

"I'm fine," she murmurs, turning so that she could rest her head against his broad chest. He is a strong man, tanned from years of working outside, dirty blonde hair that brushed his shirt collar, and the most beautiful pair of gray eyes AJ's ever seen. Tucker had his eyes and strong jawline, though the two year old had inherited AJ's dark hair. "I'm going to our room to take a nap." He lets out a deep laugh, the one all men have put away for occasions when they want to brag.

"Yeah, I'll bet considering we didn't get much sleep last night."

"Are you gonna tell your buddies it was because of our neighbors or should I, Larry?" Burns and Daniels break down into laughter of their own as Henderson's cheeks flush a dark red, AJ slapping his ass as she walks by him. "See you later, Cowboy."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's outfit was made by the wonderful psychedelicbubblegum and you can find the set in my Treasures in Egypt clothing collection on Polyvore! She goes by thewhoreofcookies on Polyvore and she makes some really great outfits!  
> http://www.polyvore.com/treasures_in_egypt/collection?id=5408723


	3. O'Connell Captures a Rat

AJ sighs contentedly as she sprawls across the bed in her cabin, watching Lawrence as he redresses, his clothes scattered around the room and his favorite shirt ripped a little near the collar from AJ’s impatient yanking. “I’ve been thinking,” she says quietly, waiting for him to meet her gaze before she continues,” maybe, after this treasure hunting nonsense is over with, we could bring Tucker here for a little while.”

“He’d love that,” Lawrence agrees with the soft smile he reserved for her and their son,” but wasn’t it you that said you hated being over here?” She rolls onto her side, reaching out to run her finger tips across his strong back as he sits to pull on his boots. “Too many bad memories or something?”

“Maybe I changed my mind once I was back in Cairo.” She shrugs, tracing invisible stars while she spoke. “I know the men would expect me to wear traditional clothing for my religion, but women are growing bolder now and I could always tell them where to stick it.”

“Or you could change religions….” He’d been bringing that up a lot since she moved to the States, but she wasn’t going to abandon Allah just because her husband wanted her to. “No matter what, the only man you have to listen to is me.” She arches a brow at that and Lawrence rolls his eyes. “You know what I meant, AJ.” He turns on the bed and leans down to press a gentle kiss against her lips, the pair closing their eyes and enjoying the familiar tastes of each other.

“My uncle has a home here; we could always come here for a week or so during the winter months to let Tucker see some of his heritage.”

“What about England? You have family there that would be ecstatic to see you and the baby more than a few times a year.” AJ makes a face at that, quickly shaking her head in dismissal. “One of these days you’re goin’ to tell me why we have to host them every year. There’s only so much a man can take when he has two women complaining about his choice in clothing.”

“You’re just upset that Millie made some excellent points.” 

“Emmeline Brae tried to change my taste in clothing overnight by  _burning_  all of my pants.” AJ couldn’t keep her giggle fit at bay, laughing even harder when Lawrence straddles her waist and begins to tickle her.

“Stop,” she cries out between laughs, squirming beneath him in an attempt to get away. “I give up, you win!” Lawrence was laughing too, a husky sound that never failed to make the butterflies in her stomach spring to life, and drops down on the bed next to her, wrapping her up in his arms so that she was snuggled up against his side. “I love you, Lawrence.”

“And I love you to the stars and back, Alexandria.” Like only she and his mother were allowed to call him Lawrence and get away with it, he was the only one allowed to call her Alexandria without her growing angry. Don’t get her wrong, she loved her first name and thought it was beautiful, but, before Lawrence came along, only her parents had ever called her that. “I better get going before the guys start making plans without me.”

“Mm, and I think I’ll go find Evy.” He gives her a sharp look as she crawls over him and pulls her clothes back on. “Don’t worry, darling, she couldn’t care less about your wardrobe.” AJ had been raised around men that took pride in their clothing, but Lawrence Henderson had five shirts that looked exactly the same, three pairs of nice pants, and two pairs of torn jeans. He always said that he didn’t need fancy clothes because he’d only ruin them while he was working, but Millie was nothing short of determined.

“Watch out for pirates.” AJ laughs again, drawing her shawl around her shoulders and fastening it before leading the way out the door, pausing only long enough to kiss her husband before they went their separate ways. The night air was cool against the bared skin of her legs, but she didn’t mind it in the least as she walked along with a hand moving along the railing.

The water lapped gently against the barge and the full moon overhead gave her light to see by between lanterns, her movements a bit sluggish after her recent exercise, but she managed to stop a few feet away from one of the small side tables that was occupied by Evy and a man AJ assumed was their guide. She hadn’t heard much about him except for his name and that he’d previously been with the French Foreign Legion.

“The Bedouin and the Tuaregs believe that Hamunaptra is cursed,” O’Connell was saying as AJ comes to a stop behind him, sending a provocative wink in her friend’s direction over his head. She wished Evy would find a man to start a family with so that she would share a few of AJ’s complaints, but she doubted Evy would ever take her advice in question when choosing her future husband.

“I don’t believe in all that hocus pocus, Mister O’Connell,” Evy replied, quickly focusing her gaze on whatever was on their table,” but I do believe the  _Book of Amun-Ra_  is buried there.” O’Connell raises a rifle, continuing to fiddle with things like he was putting it together himself. AJ was intrigued now, edging a few inches closer and wondering who had initiated the conversation. “It contains all the secret incantations of the Old Kingdom and it sparked my love of Egypt when I was a child.”

“The fact that it’s supposed to be made out of pure gold makes no never mind to you?” Evy’s eyes narrow slightly as she leans forward, pride coloring her voice and making AJ smile. She hasn’t seen Evy this excited about something in so long and it’s nice to see it again.

“You know your history.”

“Eh, more like I know my treasure.” AJ makes a noise and quickly turns to gaze, out at the water when O’Connell snaps around to look at her, AJ humming a song she’d heard in Texas and pretending not to notice them as they start talking again.

“By the way, Mister O’Connell, why did you kiss me at the prison?”

“I don’t know, seemed like a good idea since I was about to be hanged.” AJ makes another noise and allows her head to drop into her hands, Evy storming off in a fit of anger. AJ couldn’t blame her, she probably would have stormed off as well, though she would have slapped the man first. “Do you mind?” She raises her head and meets O’Connell’s gaze with raised brows. “That was a private conversation.”

“No,” AJ states,” that was you embarrassing and angering my friend. I’ll give you a tip, have a romantic answer ready for the next woman that asks why you kissed her.” He scowls, finishing up with a pistol he had, but both of them spare a glance towards a pile of luggage when they hear a grunt.

“Stay here.” He moves over to the narrow space between the luggage and the wall, AJ tiptoeing after him and jumping back when he grabs the front of a man’s shirt and drags him out, pinning him in place against the luggage. “You don’t listen, do you?”

“Take your complaints to my husband, I’m sure he’d love someone to talk to.” Then her eyes turned to the other man, taking in the brand new clothing and dirty fez. “Mister Gabor, what on earth are you doing behind there?”

“Obviously not hiding well,” he answers, voice higher than the few times AJ had spoken to him.

“But why—”

“Beni and I are old friends,” O’Connell interrupts with an unpleasant smile in Beni’s direction,” ain’t that right, buddy? Now, if you’d look away, I’ll get to killing him.” AJ gasps and covers her mouth with one hand as O’Connell brings his pistol up, ready to be fired.

“Think of my children,” Beni calls out anxiously.

“You don’t have any children.”

“Someday I might.”

“Let me guess, you’re the one who’s leading this nice lady and those Americans?” He glances sideways at AJ, continuing at her nod. “What’s the plan this time? Take them out into the middle of the desert, and then you leave them to  _rot_?” It was Beni’s turn to give AJ a look this time and he flinches at the hostile glare she was sending his way.

“Unfortunately not, the Americans are smart.” He lets out a shuddering breath, feet barely scraping the ground because of O’Connell’s hold on him. “They listened to the woman when she told them of false guides, so they are paying me half now and half when I get them back.” O’Connell lets go and takes a step backwards in order to slide the pistol into the holster under his arm, nodding Beni’s way.

“Would you like to do the honors?”

“Oh, I’d be delighted,” AJ confirms, moving forward until she was at an appropriate distance before she draws her arm back and delivers the hardest punch she’s ever thrown, the force of it making Beni’s nose bleed and her knuckles throb.

“Easy, don’t overdo it.” He takes her hand in both of his while Beni stayed bent forward, O’Connell poking and prodding gently at the delicate bones before patting her shoulder with a grin. “How do you feel now?”

“Sore, but I think my husband would be proud. Speaking of, I should probably be getting back to my room before he comes searching for me. It was a pleasure meeting you, O’Connell.”

“You, too, uh….”

“AJ,” she supplies with an easy smile,” my friends call me AJ.”


	4. Arabic Curses and Angry Wives

Gunshots ring out in the quiet night, making AJ jerk upright in bed and look around, her hand automatically going to her husband. When the shots continue and she realizes she wasn't hearing things, she turns to Henderson, expecting to find him wide awake like she was and ready to take charge.

"Some savior you are," she grumbles as he lets out a loud snore and turns onto his side. With her tongue poking out from between her lips, she turns and presses her feet against his back before kicking with all her strength. He falls with a shout, landing on the floor hard and just lying there for a moment as his wife's head peers over the edge.

"Why," he groans, too tired to manage anything more substantial. He really wished he could say this was the first time she's done this, but that was how she'd woke him the entire first week after their marriage.

In the middle of the night.

Because he snored.

AJ purses her lips together and Henderson takes a moment to focus on his surroundings, hearing screams and gunfire somewhere outside. He scrambles to his feet, pulling on boots and his shirt before grabbing his pistols and yanking his wife off their bed. "Hold on," she cries, pulling away from him and running in the complete opposite direction of the door.

"Honey," he shouts back at her," we kind of need to leave!"

"Not without my damn clothes, Larry!" He growls at the hated nickname, but wisely keeps his mouth shut as she grabs her bag of clothes and her shoes. It was a damn good thing he loved this woman or he would have thrown her overboard the day after he'd met her. It was bad enough that she mocked his Arabic, but then she had to go and make fun of his hat; all he can say is that it was her smile that saved her from a hit with said hat.

He loved that damn hat.

She pauses at the door when he doesn't make to follow, giving him a look of exasperation as he just plants his feet. "Oh, I'm sorry, Your Highness, are you ready to abandon ship now or should we gather all of our stuff?"

"Lawrence Charles Henderson, _ya Ibn el Sharmota_ , get over here this instant!"

"Yes, ma'am." He found that when she resorted to yelling at him in Arabic that it was time to do what she said or have an imprint of her shoe on his bicep again. He takes her free hand and starts outside with the other members of their group falling in behind them as they sprinted for the front of the barge. "Whoa!" He pulls AJ back sharply as a black-clothed intruder burst out of a room, the man wielding a blade that was no match for Daniels' revolver.

"Thank you," she breathes out as they start forward once more, Henderson having a good grip on her arm and a gun drawn as they made it to the front, flipping a card table over for them all to hide behind while Daniels and Burns stacked up abandoned suitcases to add to the shield. "Is this really smart? I mean, shouldn't we get off the barge like everyone else?"

"Your wife is right, Mister Henderson," the Egyptologist agrees quickly, nodding his head until Burns pushes him down.

"Lawrence!"

"Just relax," Henderson snaps, drawing his other gun and beginning to fire off round after round at the men that were attacking the ship. "I thought Egypt wasn't supposed to have pirates!" Henderson couldn't deny that this was the most exciting thing to happen to him since coming back to Egypt and the others seemed to agree as they let out excited whoops, but even he flinched backwards when an enemy  _on fire_  stumbled out of a nearby door, heading for their poker buddy a yard or so away.

"Jonathan!" The British man looked absolutely panicked when his eyes landed on the other man, but Henderson had it covered as they brought the attacker down in a second, shooting until the stranger fell over the railing.

"I say," Jonathan shouts in relief," bloody good show! And did I panic?" Jonathan holds up some weird circle with a proud smile and Henderson noticed the way his wife's hand shook as she held out more bullets for him. "I think not." Two fires joined right then, making one massive blaze that sent Henderson and the others toppling overboard as fast as they could, tripping over one another until all of them were floundering in the Nile.

"I  _hate_  this place!" Henderson breaks the surface with a gasp, holstering his guns and helping AJ to stand, his wife storming towards the shore while Henderson caught the reigns of a pair of horses. He's been raised around them all his life, been thrown more times than he could count, but even he had a limit to how much stress he could handle in one day without snapping at even the innocent animals.

"Come on, dammit," he growls, pulling impatiently and making the horses follow him to the shore. "Get a move on, would ya?" He collapses on the shore when he finally makes it there, trying to get used to land that didn't bob under his feet after spending several hours on the barge.

"Regretting this little trip now, darling?" His wife's smug voice makes him scowl, turning his gaze upward to take in the way she smiled down at him, soaking wet and as agitated as he was. "You know, if you'd only listened to me, we would be sleeping in our bed right now."

"Shut up, Alexandria."

"You first, Larry." She always had to have the last word, always had to point out things that he could've done differently to get better results; she could be the most annoying woman on the face of the earth and she wasn't even scared to hit him when she thought he needed it.

God, he loves this woman.

With a prim little sniff, she drops onto the sand next to him, grains of it sticking to her bare legs and the bottom of the lilac nightgown she had on, the fabric sticking to her curves and strands of her dark hair stuck to her flushed cheeks. Daniels had called her decent-looking the first time they'd met seven years ago, they'd seen her coming out of the local museum and she'd flashed a smile in their direction when she spotted them staring. Henderson had never even thought of hurting his friend before that, but Daniels went back to the hotel sporting a black eye and Henderson came back with a date set for that night.

"My hat was on that barge…." He loved that goofy hat, his dad had bought it for them on their first trip to Cairo when Henderson was only seven and he'd finally grown into it only to lose it in a damn fire started by  _pirates_  of all things. He hears the shuffling of clothing until a familiar hat is held in front of his face, his eyes going wide as he turns to look at AJ. "Is that…?"

"I shoved it in our bag before we left the room."

"I love you, woman."

* * *

 

They all made camp on the shore that night, taking shifts so that two men were on duty at all times in case their native buddies decided to make a second attempt on all their lives. Even when he was supposed to be asleep for his next shift, Henderson found himself sitting up in his tent with AJ’s head resting in his lap. He didn’t feel safe and couldn’t shake off the previous alertness, so he just kept his pistols close by and an arm over his wife’s upper stomach. Having her close made him less tense, his gaze captured by the gentle rise and fall of her chest and the way the moonlight filtering through the entrance of their tent made her tanned complexion look almost like caramel.

He knew most people would barely spare her a glance because she wasn’t some magnificent beauty, but he thought she was the most gorgeous woman in the world. She had long brown hair that fell nearly halfway down her back, stretchmarks along her thighs and belly from carrying their son, she wasn’t anywhere near fit, but she never balked at honest work when he needed help.

He didn’t fall in love with her because of her looks, he fell in love because of the way her little glances made him feel lightheaded, her gentle smile made all his troubles fade into the background, the feel of her hand in his made him feel grounded and secure, and his heart never failed to melt when he saw their son cradled in her lap as she read to him at night. She was perfect in his eyes, the only woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, and he wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world. AJ and their son gave Henderson a reason to keep going in life, they made the world brighter and made him smile whenever his eyes landed on them.

AJ makes a small noise in the back of her throat before her eyes flutter open, brown meeting gray as a smile lights up her entire face. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping,” she murmurs, voice barely heard over the sound of waves hitting the sand outside.

“Nah, I’m not tired,” he answers, brushing a strand of hair off her face. It had finally dried and curled near the ends in the cool night air, some of it framing her face. She reaches up to cover the hand he has on her stomach, running her thumb along his. They’d often sat like this when she was pregnant, Henderson marveling over the fact that the tiny life in her womb was one that he’d helped create. “How’re you feeling?”

“I’m fine, but what about you?” Henderson offers up a shrug and returns her smile with one of his own before allowing his gaze to move to the entrance of their tent. He could make out a dying fire that Burns had made, could smell fresh coffee floating on the gentle breeze, and he could vaguely make out the top of the sun as it began to ascend into the sky. They’d be heading out soon, the moonlight giving way to pinks and scarlets.

“You should start getting dressed.” She makes a face at the thought of leaving the cocoon of blankets that were tangles around her, but she rises all the same and Henderson is quick to leave the tent in order to zip the flaps closed and ensure no one tries to look in at her. He stands with his feet planted and his arms crossed over his chest, looking like a warrior ready to pounce at the first shout of danger.

He doesn’t relax until he hears AJ exit the tent, one of her soft hands resting on his bared forearm and her smile still in place. “Easy, cowboy, don’t need you having a heart attack before we even find the treasure.” He snorts at that, pressing a kiss against her forehead before wrapping an arm around her shoulders, leading the way over to the food and coffee.

“Mornin’, AJ,” Burns greet around a mouthful of bacon. Bernard Burns was the smartest of the three men, Henderson would be the first to admit that, and it showed when the man’s eyes stayed firmly on AJ’s face. She’d chosen a simple dress to wear today, cream-colored with several beads of the same color decorating the upper half of it with sleeves the width of two of his fingers, and the bottom of it stopping just under her knees; the material loose and swaying when she moved. Silver and turquoise earrings dangled as she nodded her good mornings to the other men, and a pair of Kitten heels protected her small feet from the rough sand.

Yeah, she may not be some spectacular goddess in looks, but she was more than enough for Henderson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ya Ibn el Sharmota = son of a bitch. It's a rough translation I found on a website, so I'm sorry if it's wrong.


	5. Race to Hamunaptra

They made very few stops for the next two days of the journey, mainly to catch a few hours of sleep or to cook the day's food before the heat settled in. AJ would be the first to admit that it wasn't exactly a comfortable arrangement, but it was the only safe way to continue forwards to the fabled city of death. Just the thought of Hamunaptra made her stomach twist into knots, the dread never leaving her even as she dreamed.

" _My breast it is as cold as clay, my breath is earthly strong_ ," AJ sang quietly as they rode through the desert," _and if you kiss my cold clay lips, your days they won't be long. How oft on yonder day, sweetheart, where we were wont to walk_." She looks around her at the people in their company; a few diggers to do the hard work, the Egyptologist, her American family, and the idiot known as Beni. A large group by any means, but they would all be beneficial if this wasn't one big goose chase.

"Know anything that isn't sad," Daniels asks, earning a soft smile from AJ.

"Folk songs not to your liking, I take it?"

"Not that one anyway." It was an old song and she remembered her mother singing it on occasion when they lived in Yorkshire; it was a song about grief, learning that you had to move on for your loved ones to rest. Her father reacted much the same way as Daniels, but AJ sang it to her son every night to carry on the tradition and Lawrence didn't seem to mind it.

" _The fairest flower that e'er I saw has withered to a stalk_ ," she continues stubbornly, allowing her mare to wander closer to her husband's gelding. " _When will we meet again, sweetheart? When will we meet again? When the autumn leaves that fall from the trees are green and spring up again_."

"Anyone that said my wife wasn't stubborn was lying through their teeth," Lawrence states with a grin, reaching out to grasp AJ's hand in his larger one. His hands were as tan as the rest of him, though not quite as dark as AJ's skin, and they were always so gentle. She twines their fingers together, finding herself growing content on this vacation as long as he was by her side.

"That's right, honey." AJ's smile is wiped away when she notices something white poking out of the sand, bleached from the sunlight and standing out against the golden dunes. She wasn't sure what it was at first, but then she saw more of the white things, gleaming and horrifying.

 _Bones_.

They were all over the place, whole arms resting on the surface as though the dead were trying to unbury themselves; grinning skulls with black holes for eyes staring endlessly up at the sun. "Allah," she breathes in disgust, squeezing her husband's hand tighter," what are we getting ourselves into?" The diggers seemed just as upset as herself, but everyone else tried their hardest to ignore the poor victims, horses' hooves grinding the brittle bones into dust. "We should go back. This is not a place for the living."

"It's alright," Burns assures her, bringing his horse up on the other side of AJ's," these people were probably those soldiers the Egyptologist told us about last night. Remember? A lot of them died and most were just left here because it was too expensive to bring 'em home." She shudders, not wanting to think of hundreds of bodies left to rot under the sun or of carrion birds picking the flesh from bone.

"This is not right." She says a quick prayer in Arabic, wishing for the souls of the deceased to find peace at last. No one deserved to suffer between worlds, especially not men who gave their lives so that others might have a better chance.

"Good morning, my friend," Beni calls out in greeting as they come around a corner, spotting the other group that was made up of AJ's friends, the uncouth American, and a rather smelly warden. The two groups stop closer together, AJ, Beni, and O'Connell staring ahead of them at more of the desert. The land in front of them was completely flat apart from a few dunes that had built up over the years, perfect for stone monuments to rest on.

"Anybody got a clue about why we're not moving anymore," Daniels asks, looking to his friends for an answer.

"The city can only be revealed by the sunrise, Dave," AJ replies, tightening her grip on her horse's reigns. "That's what the old papyrus my uncle deciphered said anyway."

"Nah, you got it right," O'Connell nods," it shows the way."

"Remember our bet," Lawrence calls to the other American," first one to the city gets five hundred bucks."

"What's your wifey gonna think of you when I take that five hundred bucks, Henderson?" AJ arches a brow in her husband's direction, Lawrence having the good sense to avoid eye contact at all costs. It was a smart move; she's found that a certain look causes him to take the trash out or even take their son to a playdate. Then again, the look she sent his way now was nothing short of _I'll shave your head while you sleep_. "Get ready for it."

The groups watched in tense silence, the sky above them slowly changing from the purple of twilight to vivid scarlets and pinks as the sun crests the horizon. Far in front of them a city begins to appear, wavering in the fragile light like a mirage about to disappear, but it stabilized as the sun rose higher in the sky. AJ stared at it in awe, remembering all of the stories her uncle told her as a child, how accurate his descriptions had been.

Her much-needed moment is broken by excited shouts and whoops, everyone around her urging their horses and camels forward in a mad dash to make it to Hamunaptra first. AJ was right behind them, urging her mare into a fast gallop and letting out a shout of her own. The adrenaline was pumping now and she felt her uncle would be proud of her for being part of the group of adventurers that found the city.

"I hope you're watching me, Uncle Alex," she murmurs, hunching forward in the saddle," because I'm finding you on the Last Day and I'll kick you if I find out you missed this."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song AJ sings is called The Unquiet Grave—made during the 1400’s—and I used the version sang on Penny Dreadful by Sarah Greene. The Last Day is when the earth will be destroyed and Allah will raise all people from the dead to be judged.
> 
> SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6ybG5hgm-4


	6. An Unexpected Encounter

AJ swings her legs back and forth through the air, supported by her hands as she leans her head back with her eyes closed. It was nice to sit on something that wasn’t hard leather for once and the stone roof beneath her was warmed by the sun. “Do they know somethin’ we don’t,” Lawrence asks, speaking of Evy’s group.

“They are led by a woman,” the Egyptologist remarks with a sneer, AJ opening her eyes to look at him. “What does a woman know?” Lawrence’s eyes go wide as his wife stands up, her hand automatically reaching out and pinching Chamberlain’s ear.

“You’re in deep shit now, buddy.”

“I’ll have you know that the woman down there is the smartest person I’ve ever met,” AJ snarls. “I’d even go so far as to bet she’s got more intelligence in her little finger than you have in your entire body.  _That woman_  also has a name, it’s Evelyn, and I expect you to use it from now on or I may just take your beloved fez and shove it somewhere you’d find  _extremely_  unpleasant.”

“Now for the punishment.” Lawrence knew her system well, the berating coming before whatever demeaning punishment she could think of; Lawrence was forced to spend an hour in the garden, Burns was forced to read flowery poetry aloud, Daniels was made to muck out the stables, and her son was forced to stay with his grandma for twenty minutes. This man, however, would rather sell his soul than do menial chores around the camp, so that’s exactly what his sentence will be.

“From now until this adventure is over, you’ll be cleaning the dishes and helping the diggers with anything else they might need.” He opens his mouth, but it snaps shut again when AJ applies more pressure to his ear. “Your punishment starts now, so get down there and offer the diggers some water.” The Egyptologist says nothing, AJ’s Mom Look enough to have him slumping his shoulders and starting towards the stairs.

“You are one delightfully evil woman, Mrs. Henderson.” AJ smiles when she feels her husband’s hands on her hips, leaning back so she could rest her head against his chest. She always felt safest like this, wrapped in his arms, like nothing could ever hurt her as long as he was nearby.

“You should do your best to remember that, Mister Henderson.” She turns in his arms, resting her hands on his shoulders and laughing as he raises his brows.

“Oh, is that right? And here I thought I was safe, ‘cause there doesn’t seem to be any gardens around here.”

“I’ll find something for you to do.”

“Mm, is that a promise?” Before she could answer, the diggers call out that they’d unburied the entrance to the city, the Arabic smooth and familiar to her. She’d missed the language and how it felt on her tongue, English feeling more foreign than anything despite the fact that she grew up speaking both.

AJ moves away from her husband, sending him a wink and swaying her hips the way she knew he liked, Lawrence following without her even having to ask. He is such a great husband, always so loving and ready to do anything that was needed; a true gentleman in that sense. It didn’t hurt that he still looked at her like the was the most beautiful woman on the earth even though she’s gotten chubby from the pregnancy.

 _He also likes my ass, so he’s definitely a keeper_.

Climbing over sand-covered stone wasn’t easy in sensible clothing, but it was even more difficult in a dress and a pair of kitten heels. She knew she should’ve donned a flowing skirt and flat-soled shoes to make everything easier, but she was a stubborn woman at the best of times and the beaded, silver dress made her feel pretty dammit.

“Easy, AJ,” Daniels cautions when she reaches the ground,” those steps are nice and smooth, perfect to make you slip.”

“Then I guess it’s a good thing I have you gentlemen around to keep me from losing my dignity.”

“And here I was thinking you’d lost that when you fell off your horse before you got pregnant.” She slaps his arm playfully, laughing along with him as they made their way over to the opening. It was just the perfect height that she didn’t have to duck, but all the men around her were hunched over; the stone as weathered as Daniels had said, faded hieroglyphics carved into the walls. She couldn’t read them like her uncle could, her own teenage rebellion to blame, but she still smiled when she ran the tips of her fingers over them.

 _Hieroglyphics tell stories, AJ, they tell us all about how our ancestors lived and died. They’re our ties to the past and they must always be respected just as you’d respect our written word today_.

Her uncle had been obsessed with them, pouring over any new ones that came into the museum or just rereading the old papyrus scrolls they had stored in their attic. These would have made her uncle leap with joy and a familiar pang in her chest reminded her that he’d never be able to see them.

Sadder than when she started the descent, she makes it to the bottom where the staircase widened for two steps and then merged into a hallway that went straight for five feet before beginning a graceful curve to the left. She was one of the first few down the steps, the diggers ahead of her and the others following afterwards, so she was one of the first to see the old mirrors set against the walls.

The mirrors stand on solid bases that allowed the disks to be adjusted, but not easily moved, covered in spider webs and dulled after centuries of being buried. They would have lit the way for ancient Egyptians, their version of modern lighting, but they were of no use right now since the staircase blocked most of the sunlight.

“What’s with the giant circles,” Burns asks, joining AJ to wipe some of the webs away.

“It’s for light,” she answers with a shrug,” probably to help the workers before those steps eroded and blocked the sun.”

“Well I’ll be damned. Those people thought of everything, didn’t they?” She laughs and nods, patting Bernard’s shoulder. “Is stuff like this what your uncle used to study?”

“Yeah, he’d find these mirrors all the time. I have about six of them in his old house right now if you’re in need of one.” He snorts, passing her a lit torch before taking up one of his own from a digger. “We’ll probably find tons of these spread throughout the city, so you might as well get used to ‘em.”

“Are they worth anything?”

“Maybe five dollars to a gullible American.”

“Hey, lovebirds,” Lawrence says loudly,” if you’re quite finished with the flirting, then we should get movin’.”

“If that’s your idea of flirting, then it definitely explains why you kept bragging about that necklace on our first date.” She and Burns join the rest of their group, AJ handing her torch off to her husband so he could hold it up higher, wrapping her arm around his waist.

“Hey, that was a scarab beetle frozen in amber, it was neat.”

“I hate to break it to you, but that was just plastic.” The look of offense on Lawrence’s face sent AJ into a laughing fit. He prided himself on knowing authentic products, so this would be a massive blow to his ego, which meant he was likely to throttle the merchant that had tricked him all those years ago.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me that before I paid ten bucks for it.” He was pouting now, brows furrowed and bottom lip poking out.

“So that’s where Tucker gets his pouty face,” Daniels laughs. Lawrence goes tense and his eyes narrow, glaring at his best friend as though the other man had personally thrown the family pet down a well.

“Honey,” AJ scolds,” you can’t kill your best friend because he made fun of you. If you make me deal with your mother while you do life in prison, then I’ll be in the cell next to you because I’ll smother the woman with her own doilies.” Her stern tone had Lawrence gazing forlornly down at his boots and giving a nod. “Daniels, tell the man you’re sorry.”

“I was just—”

“David Antony Daniels, you apologize or you’ll be doing dishes alongside the Egyptologist for a week!”

“Sorry, Henderson!”

“There,” she smiles brightly,” wasn’t that easy?” The men grumble and begin to walk again, Daniels staying near the front to avoid Lawrence kicking sand on him. How childish the three of them could be always surprised AJ, but she supposed this wasn’t nearly as bad as the time they completely filled the master bathroom with shaving cream.

The further they went down the curving hallway, the darker it seemed to get; the torches grew dimmer and the cobwebs thickened. She hasn’t seen any scorpions yet and she was thankful for that much. Those little beasts had haunted her childhood, creeping into her rucksack and into her bed while she was out with her uncle. Even if she was a grown woman, she always seemed to end up in someone’s arms when one came too close to her.

The hallway began to widen as the staircase had, then they entered an open space the size of her entire house. It was empty apart from an enormous onyx statue of a man with a sarong around his waist. It was half buried, but AJ knew from the position of it that it was Anubis, the guardian and protector of the dead.  _The room meant for mummification should be close, then_. Anpu was his Egyptian name, but most used the Greek spelling and even her uncle was among the latter.

A strange noise starts up, shuffling like someone was dragging their feet over stone, followed by a faint scratching noise of insects. Lawrence, Daniels, and Burns waste no time in handing off their torches and drawing their pistols, cocking them as they inched forward. AJ was pushed behind them beside the Egyptologist, wielding her torch as a weapon.  _I knew I should’ve brought that pistol Lawrence bought me_.

The noise grows louder and louder as they approach the statue, tension rising and AJ’s shoulders beginning to ache as she held the torch like a bat. Who knew what was beyond the statue? AJ’s imagination was acting up at the thought, creating the image of some horrible creature; moldering skin falling off pale bones, glowing red eyes, a skeletal grin that flashed as all of them were torn limb from limb.

They moved on tip toes, collectively holding their breaths, and then they were darting around the corner to face the source of the noise. It took all of AJ’s willpower not to scream at what she saw, the torch falling from her hands and extinguishing itself in the sand. It wasn’t a monster that rose from its grave to eat intruders and it wasn’t a moldering beast intent on turning them all into mush.

 _We’re all morons_.

“You scared the bejesus out of us, O’Connell,” Lawrence breathes out, relaxing slightly as they all take in the other group of explorers. The guns were never lowered on either side, but AJ let out a breath of relief all the same. She refused to let the Carnahans scare her and she decided that O’Connell wouldn’t intimidate her even if she was looking down the barrel of his revolver, though their smelly friend behind them did make her regret eating lunch.

“Likewise,” O’Connell returns. Knowing it was safe, AJ shoulders her way to the front, ducking under O’Connell’s arm so she could stand near her friend.

“Hey,” Burns frowns when his eyes land on a rolled-up leather pouch in Evy’s arms,” that’s my tool kit.”

“I don’t think so.” O’Connell points one of his pistols at Burns, the other man holding up his arms in surrender and taking a step back, having already holstered his pistol.

“Okay, perhaps I was mistaken.” AJ rolls her eyes at the display, wondering when the men were going to learn that they had to work together. Honestly, that’s the only way they would have equal chances at survival in the dry heat and they were stupid not to realize it. After one look from AJ, her group lowers their guns and O’Connell follows suit.

“Well,” Evy says,” have a nice day gentlemen. We have a lot of work to get done before the sun goes down and you’ll only get in our way.”

“Push off,” Dr. Chamberlain sneers,” this is our dig site.” AJ could handle the snotty attitude if it was directed at everyone, but the fact that the Egyptologist seemed to hate women in general made her want to pick up her fallen torch and whack him over the head with it.

“We got here first!” And just like that, the pistols were back up and AJ was beginning to think her baby was better behaved than these Americans. At least Tuck listened the first time she said something.

“This is our statue, friend,” Daniels states, always the macho one of the group.

“I don’t see your name written on it, pal,” O’Connell shoots back.

“Sixteen to four,” Beni says,” our odds are greater than yours, O’Connell.” AJ’s attention moves to her friend when she hears the shifting of sand, looking for a snake but finding some rocks instead, Evy toeing them towards a thin crack in the floor, the rocks echoing loudly as they fell through and struck something beneath the earth.  _Another room maybe?_  She seemed to share AJ’s thought and nods towards the men, giving a little shrug.

“That’s quite enough,” AJ states loudly, stepping between the two groups and sending her husband a long look when his side refused to lower their guns again. “You had better hope I die when you squeeze that trigger because I’ll hit you over the head with your own pistol if I don’t.” Knowing she was completely serious and more than willing to do it, Lawrence quickly holsters the guns, his friends and Beni doing the same. “Would you look at that? They  _can_  be taught.”

“AJ is right,” Evy nods, stepping up beside her. “There are plenty of places to dig in this city and I’m sure it will be easy for us to find another one.” She sends a meaningful look to O’Connell, resting a dainty hand on his arm to make him lower his gun.

“Evy, I meant to ask, is the sah-netjer down that hallway or am I confusing my gods again?”

“Oh yes, and I’ve set up the mirrors so you only need torchlight to get down the hall.”

 _Time to see where they made the mummies_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anubis is one of the most iconic gods of ancient Egypt. Anubis is the Greek version of his name, the ancient Egyptians knew him as Anpu (or Inpu). Anubis was an extremely ancient deity whose name appears in the oldest mastabas of the Old Kingdom and the Pyramid Texts as a guardian and protector of the dead. He was originally a god of the underworld, but became associated specifically with the embalming process and funeral rites.


	7. A Nighttime Attack

After a long day spent burying the remains of three diggers, it was nice to relax on her cot and just enjoy the peaceful crackling of the fire and the feel of her husband lying alongside her. The flaps of their tent were closed and Lawrence was working blindly on the zipper of her dress, cursing against her neck when it refused to cooperate.

"You know," AJ laughs," I could unzip the dress to save you the embarrassment."

"Relax, I'm gettin' it," he grumbles back. It always made AJ grin like an idiot when she remembered how easily he managed a gun or tools, but could never figure out such a simple thing as a zipper. "Your zipper has it out for me, baby."

"I'm sure that's it." She lets out a gasp when he nips sharply at her neck as payback for her laughing, returning it by sucking on his lobe. That never failed to turn him into jelly, Lawrence almost collapsing on top of her in that split second. He lets out a long groan, cupping the back of her head and kissing her deeply.

"That's cheating," he breathes against her lips when he pulls back again. It was AJ's turn to groan, and she pulled him back down by the front of his shirt. She loved his kisses, all the passion that he put into them and the way he always tasted of peppermint. She tangles the fingers of one hand into his sandy blonde hair, tugging gently on it the way he liked. For that moment, they were in a bubble, able to block out all outside noise, each enjoying the way the other felt pressed tightly against them.

"Mister Henderson," Chamberlain cries out in panic, breaking the spell. Lawrence jerks upright, the couple now able to make out all the noise happening right outside their tent.

"Get your gun now!" He stands and pulls her to her feet, shoving her small pistol at her before taking up both of his and leading the way outside. Black-clad men had swarmed the encampment, galloping through on horseback and setting fire to the tents, torches waving in the air and scimitars flashing as they cut through innocent people. "What the hell is this?!"

"Medjai," AJ answers, chambering a round and raising her gun as she'd been taught. "But they shouldn't be murdering people like this." Lawrence doesn't hesitate, forcing AJ behind himself and Burns as they begin to fire at the attackers, never missing where they aimed. At this point, missing would be a hard thing to accomplish because the riders were everywhere; some still astride their stallions and other fighting on the ground.

"Friends of yours?"

"No, t-they are meant to be a kind people that only attack when provoked." With hands steadier than she felt, AJ fires at one of the men running at her, dropping him. The bullet had gone clean through his shoulder, severing arteries that had him bleeding out quickly into the sand. "Allah, forgive me." It was chaos, people screaming and swords ringing, gunshots making her ears ache.

Somehow she'd gotten swept up by a group of diggers that were running away from the riders, leaving her a good five yards from her husband and directly in front of one of the riders. She stares up at him in fear, the sharp tip of his blade under her chin keeping her from raising her weapon.

The rider's nose and mouth were covered by a black cloth, but she could still make out the dark tattoos across his cheeks and dark brown eyes that bore into her own. She saw cold determination in those eyes, but she also saw a flicker of mercy, and she gave a nod of respect to him as he lowered the sword and galloped away. Perhaps he wasn't the type to kill women or perhaps he'd just taken pity on her, but AJ wasn't about to see if that gift horse had cavities.

Shaken up, but no worse for wear, she turns in time to see Daniels take a wound to his arm, falling to his knees yet still firing. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," he nods, allowing her to help him back to his feet," just help me over to the guys." Together they force their way past fleeing workers and homicidal maniacs until they're back with their group, Burns taking Daniels' weight off of AJ. The two men had been together for as long as AJ had known then, always sneaking glances when they thought nobody noticed.

"Enough," a man shouts a few minutes later. He seemed to be the leader of this tribe, his cloth mask fallen away to reveal a stern mouth as he faced down O'Connell, the American man holding a lit stick of Dynamite. "We will shed no more blood this night, but all of you must leave." His and AJ's gazes meet for just a brief moment, but she was still able to recognize them as belonging to the man that had spared her life. "Leave this place or die. You have one day!"

"So much for them being peaceful," AJ mutters under her breath, gun lowered and her free hand resting on her husband's back. One of the attackers trots over to the leader, the other man easily climbing onto the saddle of a free horse.

"Yalla, imshi!" And then they were galloping out of the city, horses' hooves kicking up sand that had AJ turning her face away to avoid getting it in her eyes. Once they were sure the attackers weren't coming back to finish the job, all of them begin to check on their group, AJ relaxing slightly as she settles into something familiar. Playing nurse to her stubborn family was something that she's done since childhood, so it only made since for Daniels to automatically hold out his arm when told to.

"It's not too bad, but you still need stitches."

"Aw man," he whines, letting out a hiss of pain when she prods at the wound.

"Sit down and stop acting like such a baby." Scowling, Daniels does just that, sitting at the base of an obelisk while she ran to get her medical kit. It was actually a beat-up metal box, but she made sure to keep it filled with fresh gauze, rubbing alcohol, thread, needles, and the cowboy Band-Aids her son favored.

"Are you sure you can't just slap a bandage on there and call it good?" She glares at him as she kneels in the sand, ripping the sleeve of his shirt further so she could get a better look. "Uh, right, stitch away, ma'am." It was always good to know that her looks worked on grown men that weren't her husband.

"That proves it," Burns says excitedly as she cleans the wound," old Seti's treasure's just gotta be under this sand."

"Why else would they protect the city like this," Lawrence agrees with a grin. AJ glances at him over her shoulder, taking in the fact that his shirt was only half tucked into his pants, his feet were completely bare, his shirt was closed by only two buttons, and his suspenders hanging loosely from his pants. Burns wasn't much better with shaving cream still covering the left half of his face and his glasses crooked.

"They're desert people," O'Connell informs them from somewhere on AJ's right," they value water more than anything and they have no use for gold."

"He's right," AJ confirms when Lawrence looks to her," they never attack like this unless they're being threatened. They must believe in the curse and just want to try and protect the world from what we could unleash." _A horrible mummy that will burn the world down just to find his true love again_. It might have been romantic if Shakespeare had written it, but the curse was something her uncle only spoke about over a roaring campfire to scare new workers.

"Could you not distract her," Daniels complains loudly," the woman's about to stick a needle through my arm!"

"You act as though I haven't done this before." She sterilizes and threads the needle, gently pushing it through the skin and slowly pulling the wound closed.

"Not my fault I'm clumsy."

"No, Daniels, my son is clumsy, you're just danger-prone." Lawrence snorts, sitting down beside his friend and clapping him on the shoulder. "Hey, you make me mess this up and I'll stitch your fingers together, Larry."

"Good to know I'm not the only one scared of her." Lawrence makes a face, but he makes sure not to touch Daniels again until AJ was finished.

"That wasn't so bad, now was it?"

"If I say no, does that mean I get some of your homemade cookies when we get back to Texas?" AJ nods and smiles, standing up to brush the sand off her dress.

"I could get shot if it means cookies," Lawrence shrugs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From what I’ve found online, “yalla, imshi” roughly translates into “come on, let’s go” but if anyone out there knows differently, let me know!


	8. Beware of the Curse

AJ jerks herself awake, breathing hard as the feeling of panic seemed to burst. Instead of gauzy curtains, she saw the white fabric of her tent, but there was still a heavy arm about her waist. Afraid of what she might find, she turns slowly until her back is to the tent flaps, finding a familiar face that made her heart leap into her throat.

 _Iason_.

“You wiggle too much,” he murmurs, gray eyes flickering open. His brows draw together over his eyes as he takes in her fear, the man supporting himself on an arm so he could brush some of her hair off her face. “Hey, it’s alright, I’ve got you.” It was the tenderness in his eyes that reminded her that this man was her husband and not the man from her dreams, AJ letting out a shaky breath as she rests her head against his chest.

“I know, thank you,” she says, thankful to have him.

“Nightmares again?” She nods, relaxing as Lawrence settles back down on their cot and rubs her back soothingly. “Maybe you’ll feel better if you tell me about them.” He’d been asking about them ever since their wedding night, concerned for how she always woke up exhausted and terrified, but AJ still didn’t have the courage to talk about them.

“Lawrence—”

“Alexandria, I’m never leaving you and I’ll never allow something to hurt you, you know that. Just get your fears off your chest and we’ll go from there.” She heaves a sigh, sitting up and bringing her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on them.

“They’ve been happening since I was four,” she starts, closing her eyes and remembering. “I mean, they’re not even terrifying scenes, but there’s a sense of upcoming  _doom_  that taints all of it. I know something bad is about to happen, but I don’t know when it’ll finally strike.”

“What are they about?” He sits up too, pulling her onto his lap so he could wrap his arms around her protectively.

“This girl and her older brother from the time of Pharaohs, both of them just trying to survive a bad childhood. Their father was a merchant that didn’t do very well in the bazaar and their mother died shortly after the girl’s first birthday; the brother was sent to Thebes to train as a priest in order for him to survive, but the sister remained with their father to do the chores around the house.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad.”

“It’s not except for that horrible feeling that everything is going to go wrong.” She doesn’t realize she’s been trembling until Lawrence covers them with the blanket. “Her brother is made into the High Priest when she’s fifteen and summons her to the palace to live with him. He was protective of her, you see, she was the reason he wanted to better himself. While there, he’d arranged a possible marriage between her and the Pharaoh’s nephew, a snotty boy a year older than her that would rather pass his afternoons with his lover.”

“What a little shit.”

“Honey, his lover was his best friend and a male.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway, the sister and the nephew would have married each other if only to save themselves any trouble in the future, but there was one thing neither had planned.”

“Love?”

“That’s right. Her brother had assigned her a bodyguard, a Greek warrior that had come to Egypt to escape his overbearing family. He was beautiful and fierce and kind, he would give his life for the sister without questioning it. At first it was because he was being paid to keep potential enemies from assassinating her, but then they began to talk during her afternoon walks through the gardens, which led to them talking throughout the rest of the day. She would teach him ancient Egyptian and he would teach her Greek and Latin, she would help him dress like an Egyptian and he would tell her about the fashions in his homeland.”

“Sounds kind of like us, huh?”

“A little, yes.” That’s one of the things that never failed to make her heart beat faster in fear.  _Would their relationship be doomed just like the people in her dreams?_  “They didn’t even realize they’d fallen in love until she was seventeen and he kissed her out on her balcony. The sister had never been kissed before and she never wanted to kiss anyone else after that, neither did he because she fit so perfectly against him.”

 _Like we do_.

“Things progressed quickly after that: Stolen kisses when the brother wasn’t looking, balmy nights spent wrapped in each other’s arms, and caresses under the table during meals. They were so in love that you’d have to be blind to miss it. The sister still married the nephew as she was expected to and it was a happy union as the nephew didn’t care that she kept her lover.”

“But her brother knew about it, didn’t he?”

“He was a clever man and capable of cruelty when it came to defending his little sister. He knew his little sister and the warrior were sneaking around behind the backs of everyone because he and the Pharaoh’s mistress were playing at the same game. There was a difference, though.”

“That was his little sister and he’d arranged the marriage to keep her untouched.” AJ nods solemnly, able to picture the chaos of her dreams even with her eyes open. “What did he do to her?”

“He claimed the warrior was forcing himself on women around the palace, paid off the women to back up the accusations, and had the warrior executed while his little sister as on an outing with her husband. She was informed of what had happened when she returned and collapsed in her husband’s arms, overwhelmed from the sudden grief and the secret growing in her belly.”

“Oh God, she was pregnant.”

“A healthy baby boy that was born eight months later with his father’s beautiful gray eyes.” She pauses and looks up at Lawrence, noting the way he was completely enthralled by the tale. “Thankfully, he had his mother’s dark hair and so the populace believed the child to be a pure Egyptian, the Pharaoh happily claiming the child as his great nephew. Little Ibi was protected because of the lie and the sister knew he would be well looked after in the palace, so she could finally grieve.”

“What happened?”

“The grief was too much for her, she was still fragile after giving birth and it was just enough to push her to her limit. She committed suicide just two days before Seti I was murdered, her body broken like her spirit had been. Because of her status, she was mummified and buried in a small tomb that was filled with gold and her favorite bed; sent to the afterlife with enough things to keep her comfortable.”

“I wonder if she ever found her lover.”

“No one knows.”

“Hold up, what do you mean no one knows? I thought this was just a dream.”

“It is, and I can’t understand it, but it’s my family history, too.” She looks up at her husband again, cupping his face in her hands. “It’s why my uncle was so obsessed with this city, it had ties to our aunt Nefertari and her lover, Iason. My mom said that the dreams skip generations, but it’s like we’re being told the story first-hand.”

“There’s still something you’re not telling me.”

“I’ve been getting so scared of them since I met you because…. Because you look just like the warrior in my dreams, Lawrence. I’m so afraid that we’re going to suffer like my ancestors did that it’s all I can think of sometimes.”

“That’s never happening,” he promises, hugging her tightly against him,” I’m never leaving your side, no matter what. I’ll kill anyone that tries to take you away from me.”

* * *

It was late afternoon that same day when they reentered the Anubis Chamber, AJ making sure to stay far from the spot where the diggers had been melted the previous day. Four diggers surrounded the hole in the statue’s base that the previous diggers had exposed with their crowbars before they were melted by salt acid, the newer ones slowly pulling out a chest.

It was ornate and the size of a phonograph, made of dark wood with hieroglyphics carved into the sides and two figures painted on either side of the front panel. The group of diggers standing behind her were mumbling to themselves, speaking of curses and stupid Americans. She might have snapped at them for calling her husband stupid, but she couldn’t help but agree in that moment.

The chest was covered in dust and cobwebs, Chamberlain and her family kneeling around it as it’s dusted off. On the lid of it were more hieroglyphics, running along the edges and down the center to cut the square in half. “There is a curse upon this chest,” Chamberlain declares, grabbing Daniels’ wrist before the other man could touch the chest.

“Who cares,” Lawrence says arrogantly, wincing when AJ’s shoe connects with his ass.

“Have care, Mister Henderson. I’m sure that even your wife, as unsuperstitious as she is, would advise caution here.” AJ nods in agreement, years of careful consideration making her weary of anything she couldn’t explain. “In these hallowed grounds, that which was set forth in ancient times is as strong today as it was then.”

“That’s all well and good, but what’s the damn thing say?” AJ kicks him a little harder this time, crossing her arms over her chest and silently daring him to say anything else. It was bad enough that he dragged her all the way across the country, but now he just couldn’t stop ignoring obvious warnings to turn back. 

 _Stubborn little bastard_.

Chamberlain begins to read the hieroglyphics aloud, the ancient Egyptian familiar to AJ even if she didn’t understand it. The people in her dreams spoke it, but she’s never heard it while she was awake and it only sunk in further that her dreams were visions of her ancestor. 

“‘Death will come on swift wings to whomsoever opens this chest’,” the Egyptologist translates, voice loud in the quiet chamber. A sudden wind picks up, blowing Lawrence’s hat right off his head, sounding like the hissing of steam or angry whispers of a man long since dead.

The diggers wasted no time in running back the way they’d came, shouting in Arabic as they went that the curse would claim us all.

“We should not be here,” Beni warns, drawing his gun and looking around for anything that might jump out to kill them.  _Is the mummy truly wandering these halls?_ AJ grips her torch even tighter, the light not reaching as far as it should and shadows seeming to thicken.

“It says ‘There is one, the undead, who, if brought back to life, is bound by sacred law to consummate this curse.’”

“Let’s all make sure not to summon dead guys,” Daniels remarks, mouth snapping closed again when he meets AJ’s glare. This was nothing to joke about, not when she knew how devastating curses could be. Her uncle had been with Lord Carnarvon when Tut was discovered and now both were dead not long after his tomb was disturbed.

“‘He will kill all who open this chest and assimilate their organs and fluids, and in so doing, he will regenerate and no longer be the undead, but a plague upon this earth.’” The whispers start up again, AJ moving closer to the group as her heart beats faster in fear.  _It could be hiding in the shadows, just waiting for us to separate_.

“We didn’t come all this way for nothin’, did we,” Lawrence asks sarcastically. “Let’s crack this thing open and see what we’ve won.” As AJ had moved closer, Beni had moved further away towards the entrance, looking just as panicked as she did.

“It’s the curse,” he mumbles, then louder,” the curse of the mummy. Beware of the curse!” And then he was high-tailing it after the diggers, AJ wanting nothing more than to chase after him.

“Stupid, superstitious bastard.”

“No, he’s right,” AJ says in his defense. “Put that thing back where it came from and let’s get out of here before you idiots unleash something you have no control over!”

“Calm down, AJ, ain’t nothing here that can hurt us beyond some snakes or scorpions.”

“Lawrence Charles Henderson, I will drag you out of here by your nose if you don’t listen to me! This isn’t something you can ignore to make it go away, this thing will kill everyone on this planet until it’s the only thing left!” She couldn’t catch her breath, taking two unsteady steps backwards. “We  _need_  to get out of here!” Lawrence stands and wraps an arm around her shoulders, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

“It’s alright, honey.” But it wasn’t alright and she didn’t want to watch what was about to happen. She just wanted to be back in Texas with her son snuggled up in her arms, to read to him like she used to and take him out for walks around the city. It was safe in Houston, there were no homicidal mummies or ancient curses to cloud their happiness.

While Lawrence was consoling AJ, Burns and Daniels force the heavy lid off the chest, a cloud of dust shooting into the air and making AJ let out a shriek of fear. “If I die because of this curse, I’m haunting all of you.”

“That’s great, sweetie, haunt away.” They move back over to the others, now standing, and all of them peer into the chest. It was hollower than it appeared on the outside, filled with a thick object wrapped in a dirty cloth. The four men kneel down again to get a better look, but AJ remains standing.  _I just had to fall in love with a headstrong cowboy_.

Chamberlain unwraps the cloth gingerly, revealing a book made of what appeared to be pure onyx; on the front, scarab beetles were carved near the top and bottom, a few lines of hieroglyphics carved on the left, and a strange, star-like marking carved on the right. She knew what it was, any Egyptian would after middle school history, and her breath caught in her throat.

“That’s not where that was supposed to be,” is all she can manage, staring down at the book with wide eyes. Chamberlain meets her gaze and dips his head in a nod, actually recognizing the fact that she knew what she was talking about. Everyone had always said that the  _Book of Amun-Ra_ would be inside the Anubis statue, but how could they get it so wrong?

“You’re quite right, Mrs. Henderson,” Chamberlain admits as he lifts the book from the chest,” but this is still a fantastic discovery. Alexander would have been proud that you were here at this moment.”

“My uncle wouldn’t have opened the chest because of the curse.” It was the  _Book of the Dead_ , the book supposed to give life to the dead, and she would smack anyone that tried to read from it.

“Who cares about some stupid book,” Daniels complains. “I came here for treasure, so where is it?”

“That book is worth more than Henderson Oil in its entirety, Daniels.” The three Americans looks at her in shock, Lawrence’s mouth opening slightly as he tries to remember exactly how much the family company is worth.

“It’s not even made outta gold like you said it was!”

“Wrong book, you twit.” She slaps the back of his head for not paying attention when she’d tried to teach them about Egypt on their way here. Frankly, it’s a miracle this one graduated high school.

“I wouldn’t trade it for a bras spi—” Lawrence cuts himself off after kicking the side of the chest, the front panel falling open to reveal four canopic jars cushioned by straw. All of the group kneel down to get a better look, even AJ was curious; the canopic jars were carefully made from white stone, hieroglyphics etched into the front and the lids each a different animal—falcon, human, baboon, and Jackal.

“Now we’ve got something,” Burns grins.

“Yeah,” AJ remarks sarcastically as each of the men reach out and take one,” some dead guy’s internal organs. Congratulations on your prizes.”


	9. A Midnight Sprint

“What do you have against damsels in distress?”

“It’s completely unrealistic,” AJ shrugs as she and Lawrence walk around the camp,” most damsels handle distress way better than men do.”

“Name one time that’s happened with us.”

“I specifically remember you blubbering like a baby when I went into labor with Tucker.” He scoffs, but doesn’t deny it, both of them remembering the day fondly. It was the eighth of November, snow was just beginning to fall, and AJ’s water had broken during an intense game of checkers. Not only did she have her husband to comfort, but Daniels was running all over the house trying to pack their bags, Burns was trying to get the truck started, and AJ had to go back through and pack her own bag so she had something that wasn’t beaded to wear on the journey back home.

Men were so useless during the birthing process that it was almost funny.

“And you weren’t even the tiniest bit scared?”

“Honey, I had a five-pound child trying to escape through a sensitive part of my anatomy, of course I was scared,” she laughs, gently swinging their hands back and forth between them. “The only difference was that I’d been preparing for it while you were off drinking beer in some hidden room and bragging that you’d knocked me up.”

“In my defense, the beer was really good.” AJ lets out a huff of laughter, smiling up at her husband. “So, how do you think Tuck’s gonna like this thing?” He holds up the canopic jar, the one with the falcon head.

“Our son isn’t touching that thing.”

“But he wanted a souvenir.”

“Then I’ll spend three pounds on a Horus figurine when we get back to Cairo.”

“How much is that again?” American through and through, he still refused to learn the difference between pounds and his US Dollars.

“About three dollars, honey.”

“Oh… Well, okay then.” As wealthy as his family was, though not as wealthy as AJ’s paternal family, he was possibly the cheapest man she’s ever met. He didn’t buy things that weren’t needed, though he still bought her nice jewelry from time to time and their son a new toy because he loved them and he wanted to make sure they knew that. AJ used to claim it as an attempt to buy her affections, but he always answered with the same phrase.

 _I wanted to buy something that was as beautiful as you are, but everything fell short of the mark and this is the closest I could find_.

The fact that he saw her as his entire world always made her fall even further in love with him. With their son, he just loved to spoil Tucker and AJ is certain he’d be even worse if they ever had a daughter.

Still smiling, they join the rest of their group at the fire, sitting across from O’Connell, Jonathan, and Beni. “Hey, my wife says I can’t give this to Tuck, so what do y’all think I could get for a canopic jar back home?”

“Probably two hundred bucks from that crazy lady in town,” Burns offers. “You know, the one that collects stuffed birds and walks around with her husband’s urn.” AJ tried to stay as far from Jude Prichard as was possible since that time the crazy broad had tried yanking Tucker’s stroller right out of AJ’s hands. Of course, Prichard avoided AJ since that last encounter had ended with AJ knocking the old bat’s false teeth out.

 _Anyone that tries to take my baby from me is going to learn that I go for blood_.

“We heard you boys caught yourselves a nice mummy,” Daniels laughs, nudging Burns as the other man laughs too. “Ya know, I bet you could sell ‘im for firewood if you dried him out.” AJ rolls her eyes at the jibe, wishing she’d been with Evy’s group instead of getting  _cursed_  with the  _absolute morons_  on her left.

“Well, I think I’ll turn in for the night,” she says, giving Lawrence a chaste kiss before standing again. “Goodnight, gentlemen.”

“Night, AJ.” She hugs Burns and Daniels, then moves over to give Jonathan a hug and press a kiss to his cheek.

“Night, AJ,” he murmurs, returning the hug and kiss as he’d done when they were children. “Sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite.” She ruffles his hair with a laugh, leaving the fire behind and going straight to her tent. It was just big enough for the cot and bags, leaving her a narrow space to pull the tent flaps closed. She didn’t feel like changing out of her dress yet, the black silk of it felt nice against her skin, but she did remove the silver arm cuff, fake pearl necklace, and her heels.

“What a day,” she sighs, lying back against the pillows. The night usually grew colder in the desert, and she loved the feel of the wind as it ruffled the flaps and her loose hair. She had her father’s thickness and her mother’s color, a dark brown that came from generations of Egyptian blood, though AJ does have a maternal grampy that had bright blonde hair.

She didn’t know much about her family history apart from Nefertari, but she did know several of her father’s side of the family have moved from Egypt to Yorkshire. Her favorite cousin lives there with her husband and young daughter; Emmeline Brae had always been there when AJ needed her and vice-versa, the two practically inseparable as children. She and AJ had written several letters a week after AJ was moved to Cairo to live with her uncle, the letters evolving from childish fancies to more adult things like marriage and houses.

Millie, Leo, and little Clementine were the only things AJ missed from England, but the bad memory of her parents’ deaths always made AJ hold back on traveling to Yorkshire again. She missed walking through the parks with her father, missed sitting for hours in the attic with her mother; the windows stained glass that cast rainbows over a blank sketchpad. Good mixed with bad and left AJ feeling torn between Texas, Cairo, and Yorkshire.

As she relaxed further, listening to familiar nighttime noises, AJ’s thoughts wandered further away from the present until she was fast asleep and dreaming of snowy evenings drinking hot chocolate beside her cousin’s fireplace.

* * *

For the first time in far too long, AJ was sleeping peacefully; her dreams centered around her own family in the present time, what it might have been like if her parents were around to see their grandson. That’s why she tried to ignore the high-pitched whine for as long as she could, which wasn’t very long when she felt something crawling over her arm. She barely opens her eyes, spotting the insect without much trouble.

“Hello, Mister Locust,” she smiles drowsily, closing her eyes again. She lay like that for another few seconds until her mind actually processed what she’d seen, then she sat up and started swatting at the bug in a panic. “Ew, ew, ew!”

“What’s it,” Lawrence mumbles, sitting up and reaching for her on instinct before he even realized she’d already jumped out of bed. “Baby, what’s goin’ on?”

“I had a bug on me.” It was off of her now, but the whining sound only grew louder. “What in Allah’s name is going on out there.” She and her husband share a look before pulling on their shoes to investigate.

“Stay here until I say otherwise.” As Lawrence walked out of the tent, AJ grabbed their bag of clothes just in case it was the tribe of Medjai come to run them off again, and walked out to stand beside her friends. She could just barely make out a black mass on the horizon, her initial thought of a sandstorm falling flat as the mass gets closer and each black dot becomes an individual locust. As a whole, everyone begins to sprint for shelter, Lawrence latching onto AJ’s wrist and pulling her after him towards the entrance of the temple. “Where the hell did they come from?!”

“I ain’t waitin’ around to find out,” Daniels yells back, AJ sandwiched between the two as they all continued to run. Behind them, someone stumbles to the ground, but AJ wasn’t even able to slow down without Daniels tramping on her, so she was forced to continue forward and hope that the person would be okay.

The logical part of her mind knew this was completely common, locust swarms were generational and they procreated so much when there were a lot of green plants ready to be harvested; she’s seen two of these swarms since she came to live in Egypt. The superstitious part of her, however, proclaimed this as a biblical plague that signaled the mummy’s curse activated; he would be coming after them anytime and she needed to keep moving.

In all the chaos, Lawrence never noticed a pile of sand slowly forming just behind them, but it drew AJ’s attention when the digger behind them started screaming and calling for them to run faster. AJ looked over her shoulder just in time for the mound of sand to be blown outward, releasing thousands of scarab beetles that just served as the icing on the cake.

“Alllaena,” she curses,” Lawrence move faster now or we’ll all be dead in two minutes!” The locusts left behind them, the swarm of beetles picks up the chase and AJ’s never felt so damn scared in all her twenty-seven years. Her heart was in her throat and her stomach had already tied itself into knots, entire frame shaking, and her vision starting to darken despite the lit torches.

Lawrence noticed the way she was slowing down and stopped long enough to throw her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, the bag AJ held falling to the ground to be left behind. They ran straight down the hall for another five minutes until rounding a corner and running down a stone ramp.

“Run you sons of bitches,” Lawrence calls to Jonathan and O’Connell as he passes them,” run!”

“I’ve got some bad news,” O’Connell yells breathlessly as he catches up,” we may or may not have awakened our gooey friend from the coffin!”

“What the hell do you mean you brought a mummy back to life?!”

“It was  _your_  book that did it!” Too tired to argue any further, Lawrence lets out a growled curse.

O’Connell and Jonathan could have been Olympic sprinters, pushing their way past everyone else and leading the way towards the exit of the temple, all of them rounding another corner and pulling up short at what they found waiting for them. AJ couldn’t see anything from her vantage point, but she knew it was nothing good by the way Lawrence went rigid beneath her.

“What is it,” she whispers, though she ended up speaking Arabic on accident. She never realized when she switched languages and normally fell back on Arabic when she was emotional. “Lawrence, what is it?” She wriggles until she drops to the ground, finding herself frozen to the spot. It was a walking, talking corpse; all dirty bones with bits of moldering flesh keeping him all together and a few bandages to show he’d already been mummified. “Allah, save us.”

The creature lets out an ear-piercing howl of anger, its jaw unhinging like a snake. O’Connell, never showing an ounce of fear, shrieks right back at it, using his shotgun to blow half of the creature’s ribcage to pieces, the creature falling back and collapsing on the sand.

“Move,” he shouts, grabbing Evy and racing forward once more. In unison, Jonathan and Lawrence grab the back of AJ’s dress and haul her to her feet, Lawrence changing his grip to her hand as Jonathan let go, all of them high-tailing it away from the scene.

“Did you see that,” Daniels screeches on AJ’s left,” it was walkin’! It was walkin’!” AJ never looked back as they ran, praying under her breath as well as she could that they all make it out alive. And it seemed possible as they left the temple, but they were brought to a screeching halt just three feet away, the Medjai barring the way to the camels, pointing rifles at the group with Chamberlain kneeling in the sand in front of them.

“I told you to leave or die,” the Medjai leader says, stepping forward. “You refused and now you’ve killed us all, for you have released the creature we have feared for more than three thousand years.”

“Relax,” O’Connell assures him,” I got him.”

“No mortal weapons can kill this creature. He’s not of this world.” The leader steps aside as two of his men drag another person between them, AJ stifling a panicked sob when she recognizes the wounded man as Burns. Lawrence and Daniels kneel down, taking their friend into their arms and supporting him as he moaned in pain.

“You bastards,” Daniels croaks.

“What did you do to him,” Lawrence demands, tears gathering in his eyes. AJ drops to her knees beside them, tearing off part of her dress to use as a blindfold. It looked like someone had scooped the eyes right out of Burns’ head and AJ was willing to bet everything she owned that it was the mummy.

“Shh,” she murmurs to her friend, running her fingers through his tousled hair soothingly,” you’re safe now, Bernie. We’re going to get you help as soon as we’re back in Cairo.” Until then, the obvious wounds would need to be covered to keep sand from irritating them. “It’s going to be okay, I promise.”

“We saved him,” the leader growls back,” before the creature could finish his work. Unless all of you want to die, you should leave Egypt as quickly as you can.” AJ meets the leader’s intense gaze, continuing to murmur to her friend. “I will try and find a way to kill him.”

“I told you already,” O’Connell states as the Medjai shoulder their weapons and start inside the temple,” I got him.” The leader pauses and turns to face the group again, looking irritated and scared beyond measure.

“Know this, the creature will be coming for you as he must consummate the curse. Until that has happened, this creature will never eat, he will never sleep, and he will never stop. He is called the bringer of death for a reason.” As the leader disappears into the darkness of the temple, AJ helps to put Burns up on a camel, Daniels sitting behind him to keep his friend upright.

Once they were sure neither man would fall, Lawrence and AJ find a camel of their own, AJ having to sit on it sideways because of her dress. Not even the feeling of Lawrence’s arms around her could make the horror leave her, her body stiff against his as all of them rode back towards civilization.

“I’m sorry,” Lawrence mutters after a few hours of silence, staring ahead of him at the desert. Grief carved new lines in his face, his lips pressed tightly together when he wasn’t talking.

“Sorry for what,” AJ queries, resting against him for the warmth.

“I should’ve listened to you earlier when you said not to open the chest. Hell, I should’ve just stayed home and forgotten all about this stupid city.” She takes a deep breath, resting her hand on Lawrence’s arm and running her thumb over the muscles there. She knew contact like this always calmed his nerves and she hoped to make him relax now.

“It’s in the past, Lawrence, nothing can be done to change it now.”

“I’ve put you in danger, I-I got my best friend wounded, and I don’t know how I’m going to live with myself.” She sits up straighter, cupping his face to make him look at her.

“This is everyone’s fault, honey, not just yours. We all played our parts in unleashing the curse and all we can do now is pray that the Medjai find a way to stop it. No matter what happens, I’ll still love you to the stars and back.”

“I love you, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alllaena = curse word (Phoe-sama over on Wattpad was kind enough to give me a curse word in Arabic).


	10. Mummies in Cairo

After three days of near-constant moving, they had finally made it back to Cairo. AJ had been the first to volunteer to buy the necessary clothes, writing down everyone’s sizes and preferred styles before leaving for the bazaar not far from their temporary home. She needed the distraction shopping would provide, needed to focus on the sounds of laughter and life that seemed to be missing from their group since the attack.

Cairo was always bustling, so she could count on that to keep her thoughts from wandering; you couldn’t exactly mope and watch for pick-pockets at the same time, after all. As it is, she’s got four different suitcases filled with clothes dragging behind her and she’s just stopped in front of a stall offering hats. She didn’t care much for them herself, she was too proud of her hair not to show it off, but one of them caught her eyes. It was a bit floppy and made of dark brown leather, small stitches keeping it all together; it wasn’t a perfect replica, but it was close to the one her husband had lost.

“How much,” she asks, pulling out the roll of bills that Lawrence had pressed into her hand that morning.

“Fifty pounds,” the merchant states, eyeing the money the way a starving child might look at roast chicken.

“This thing isn’t worth more than twenty.” He met her gaze, both of them staring at each other for a long while. This was a game that AJ was an expert at, learning the fine skills of it after her tenth birthday when her uncle deemed her old enough to do the shopping.

“Twenty-five.”

“Twenty, no more and no less.” He presses his lips together in a thin line, rubbing the back of his neck before letting out a defeated sigh when her determined expression didn’t change.

“Fine.” Trying to suppress the smugness she felt, she counts out the bills and hands them over, the merchant yanking them out of her hand. “Have a good day, Miss Jibade.” She makes a face, taking her turn to look a little angry. “Come now, surely your favorite merchant can tease you from time to time?”

“Cas?” Casper Ali used to watch her when she was younger and he always gave her the best discounts, but she almost didn’t recognize him after being away for so long. His dark hair had thinned and was cut close to his head, his bright green eyes sunken slightly, and the wrinkles aging him.

“Who else would let you win that easily, Allie?”

“You’ve gotten old,” she laughs, moving behind the wooden counter so she could give him a hug. “And skinny!” Back then, Cas had been a chubby, grinning man that always had some ice cream nearby to snack on.

“And you’ve grown into a lovely young woman!” He rests his hands on her upper arms, taking a step back to get a good look at her. “Why, your husband has fattened you up since you left. Any babies yet?”

“A little boy named Tucker.”

“Stubborn like his mother?”

“I wouldn’t have him any other way.” He laughs, deep and contagious, pulling her in for another tight embrace that she had missed. No one gave hugs like Cas did, big bear hugs that brought you up off the ground; he was like a teddy bear and AJ had really missed him. “What about you and the girls?”

“Ah, Cala has gone off to teach little ones in England and little Johara is graduating high school in a month.”

“Goodness, I can’t believe I’ve been gone for so long.” Cas grins, turning and grabbing something off a shelf before facing her again and wrapping something loosely around her throat. “What? No, I can’t take this, Cas.”

“You can and you will,” he returns sternly, fixing the Sautoirso that both ends were equal in length. “I have been trying to sell this for weeks, but all the women say I want too much for it. I figure it will burn their fragile egos to know I gave it away for free because my little Allie gave me a hug.”

“Everybody calls me AJ now, Cas.” In fact, they’ve called her AJ her entire life, but Cas was a stubborn man.

“AJ is for men, not young women that want to be respected. I’ll stop calling you Allie when I am dead.”

“And you’ll call me Allie when we’re all resurrected for the Last Day,” she finishes for him with a smile, having heard the speech almost every week when he watched her. “I know, Cas, I know.” She lets out a sigh, brushing some wisps of hair behind her ear and looking at the Kasbah where she knew her husband was. “Cas, I really hate to cut this short, but I have to get these clothes back before everyone takes showers.”

“Of course, of course, I will help you.”

“No, Cas, it’s fine.” The last thing she needed was for her old babysitter to meet her husband and decide to tell Lawrence about the time she’d run through Cairo completely naked on a bet. “I’ll try to stop by again soon.” Cas presses a kiss to the crown of her head, cupping her face to make her look at him afterwards.

“Alexander would be proud of you and so would your parents.”

“Thanks.” She gives him another hug and then starts off again, dragging the heavy suitcases behind her with Lawrence’s new hat on her head. There was no more room in the suitcase for it, so she would just have to deal with the fact that it would ruin her intricate braiding.

A porter met her just inside the hotel, taking the suitcases from her and following her over to the lift, bringing them up to the second floor. “If that will be all ma’am,” he murmurs politely once all the bags were in her bedroom. She nods and passes him three pounds as his tip, going over to the small table where a tea set was resting and picking up a tea cup and saucer.

They were made of delicate porcelain, white with pale pink flowers painted on it, a circle of gold half an inch from the rim. It felt warm in her hands as she poured the hot water and allowed the teabag to steep, AJ watching in absent fascination as the water slowly changes color.

She always turned to tea when she felt close to panic, the water rippling as her hands shook. She hasn’t felt so terrified since childhood and now she felt like the boogeyman was just waiting for her to set foot outside her room so he could grab her ankle and yank her off her feet. The mummy, little more than bones and toilet paper, would suck them all dry the second he was able; he would use their organs and fluids to turn the world to ash. And what could she do to stop it from happening?

 _Not a damn thing_.

She brings the cup up to her lips and takes a hesitant sip of the tea, promptly spitting it back out the second it touched her tongue. Instead of the fruity taste she’d been expecting, she tasted copper like an old penny. Brows furrowed she stares down into her cup, the amber liquid slowly turning red. With a shout, she drops the cup and takes a few hurried steps away from it.

“Blood,” she mumbles, wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand.  _He’s here, he’s going to finish us all in one go or one at a time to make us suffer even more, and we’re all going to die_. “Burns!” She runs as best as she can in her heels, pausing in front of one of the windows that looked out on the courtyard as fire began to rain from the sky like hail. “Burns, we gotta move!”

She bursts into the room down the hall from hers, coming up short with a scream of horror. A cyclone of sand swirled around an armchair, the howling of the wind mixing with the thunderous boom of the fireballs to make one deafening sound. Her flight or fight instinct causes her to drop to her knees, shuffling off to a corner and bringing her knees up to her chest.

 _If I make myself small, I won’t be seen_.

She keeps her forehead pressed against her knees to protect her face from the stinging grains of sand, her hair coming loose and whipping against her arms. It seemed to go on forever, all other noise drowned out until it all suddenly stopped and AJ was left with a ringing in her ears. Hesitant, she chances to raise her head slightly and lift her gaze, screaming at the sight that waited for her.

A single arm was hanging from the chair, the skin taunt over prominent bones and missing all blood and muscle, but that wasn’t the worst part. A few feet away from her, in front of the fireplace, stood the mummy in all his glory, releasing a primordial screech of pain as sinewy muscle began to form over his bones. Shaking hard, AJ covers her ears and retakes her earlier pose, tears stinging her eyes and making tracks down her cheeks.

She didn’t want to greet death with open arms, didn’t want to see her attacker as he stalked over to her, but she was forced to when he yanked her to her feet and slammed her against the wall.

“ _Senet_ ,” he growls, foul breath making her gag. Despite her lack of knowledge of anything ancient Egyptian, she knew what he was calling her and it only served to make her cry harder. “Nefertari,  _senet_.”

“No,” she gasps, shaking her head and trying not to touch him,” I’m not her. I’m Alexandria, not her. Please, help! Lawrence, Daniels!” The doors to the room slams open again, drawing the creature’s attention enough for AJ to duck under his arm and run behind her saviors, clinging tightly to Evy. O’Connell stands protectively in front of the women, pistol drawn and aimed at the creature as it shrieks again.

“We are in serious trouble,” O’Connell states dryly. AJ covers her ears as O’Connell begins to shoot, the bullets ripping through the creature with no effect, Imhotep advancing on them as the rest of their party barges in. Even with the shock of everything happening, her husband pulled her beside him, pressed a gun into her hand and joined the others in shooting.

The feeling of cold metal in her hand gave her something other than the talking death machine to focus on, AJ pulling the hammer back, raising to aim, and squeezing the trigger; her bullets didn’t slow the creature either, Imhotep grabbing O’Connell’s shirt and throwing him backwards with no effort. The American hit the group, knocking everyone to the ground apart from Evy, the pistol skittering away from AJ’s grasp. She sits up with a grunt, watching as Imhotep faced her friend and began to speak; she wasn’t certain about the words coming out of his mouth, but she was sure that Evy didn’t care to hear them.

The pretty brunette pressed back against the bookcase, hands in front of her face to fend Imhotep off as he came closer.

Imhotep leaned in to kiss Evy, but looked over his shoulder when he heard discordant piano notes, Cleo the cat running across the ivory keys. Imhotep hisses at the white cat, taking a few steps away from Evy before dissolving back into the whirlwind of sand, blowing the balcony doors wide open and disappearing.

“Thank Allah for cats,” AJ breathes, looking to her husband.

“Yeah,” Daniels nods,” you do that and I’ll thank Christ.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From what I’ve found Senet = sister in ancient Egyptian.


	11. Darkness Throughout the Land of Egypt

The group follow Evy through the streets, sticking close together so none of them got lost in the crowd of people. The streets of Cairo were sprawling, many small alleys leading off the main roads that don’t help tourists to stay on track; several people wander off their path and get lost within five minutes.

After Imhotep tucked tail and ran—er, flew—out of the hotel, they had quickly decided to go to the only man they knew that might actually have some ideas of what to do. Unfortunately for AJ, it was the one man in all of Egypt that she’d rather eat a rusty nail than talk to: Doctor Terrence Bey.

Needless to say, she wasn’t a happy girl.

The men were talking over each other as they all walked into the museum, Evy and AJ leading the way through the halls. They could navigate the museum with their eyes closed after spending so much time there as children and it wasn’t difficult to know where Bey would be at the time.

“There’s only one person I know that could possibly give us any answers,” Evy states, mostly to shut the men up. They round the corner into the artifacts room, coming up short when they notice the man Bey was talking to. With dark brown hair that hung in loose waves to his collar, piercing brown eyes, and tattooed cheeks, it wasn’t difficult for AJ to recognize the other man. “You?!”

“Fantastic,” AJ grumbles as the men behind her draw their weapons,” we barely dodge being slaughtered by a mummy only to be slaughtered by a Medjai gone  _insane_.”

“Always such a pleasure when you open your mouth, Alexandria,” Bey drawls, looking just as pleased as AJ did. “I assume you’re all here because you awoke a certain mummy from his sarcophagus.”

“You assume right for once.” With pursed lips, she turns and grabs her husband’s wrist, making him lower his pistol. “What can you tell us about stopping this thing?”

“Would you really like to know or would you rather shoot us?”

“If I shoot you, then we’d be back to square one,” O’Connell admits, holstering his gun as the others do the same. “Might as well go on some faith.” The leader of a Medjai tribe looks from O’Connell to AJ, the woman crossing her arms over her chest as he took in the bruises Imhotep left.

“He touched you and yet you still live,” the leader says evenly, his accent just a little thicker than her own. “Why wouldn’t he use you to grow stronger?” AJ makes sure she doesn’t drop the man’s gaze, not showing an ounce of the fear that had her hands trembling. Humans were something she could handle, they were easy to read, but this man was different. He had an air of intimidation and danger that surrounded him like a second skin, muscles obvious even under his black robes. “Who are you?”

“I could ask you the same thing, sir,” she shoots back stubbornly.

“I am Ardeth Bay, one of the men in charge of guarding Hamunaptra.”

“Alexandria Henderson.” He continued to stare at her, her resolve slowly disintegrating until she let out a sigh and told him about the bruises. That man could be a damn lawyer, able to get confessions just by cocking up a single brow. “Imhotep pinned me against a wall and nearly made me pee myself.” Bey and Ardeth share a look before they stride in unison over to AJ, each grabbing an arm to examine the bruises. “Do you mind?”

“Hey,” Lawrence shouts, pushing them both away,” I don’t care if your one of God’s own angels, you don’t get to touch my wife without her permission!” He puffed his chest out as men were wont to do as testosterone flared to life, one of his hands reaching out to grasp one of hers. “Why does it matter to you that she isn’t a bag of bones? The point is we got there in time to save her.” AJ looks between the two guardians, sensing there was a silent conversation going on, and then widening her eyes.

“You’ve known all along, haven’t you,” she accuses of Bey. “That’s why you could barely stand to look at me, you knew who my ancestor was and you hated me for it. Well, let me tell you something, I’m nothing like Nefertari!”

“Your parents never told you the full story, did they,” Bey asks, eyes slightly narrowed as he stared at her.

“They told me she was You-Know-Who’s little sister that moved to the palace when she was a teenager, that she fell in love with a Greek warrior meant to guard her, and got pregnant with his child. After…. After Imhotep found out, he had Iason executed and she killed herself shortly after the birth of her son.” She shrugs, wrapping her arms around Lawrence’s waist in the same moment he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, the couple needing the comfort that touch offered.

“As I suspected. Your ancestor didn’t commit suicide; she was murdered by one of Imhotep’s priests after her brother issued the command. He was ashamed of her dalliance and wanted to wash his hands of her, but he changed his mind once the rage subsided. He arrived in her chambers in time to see the priest lifting a pillow off her face, too late to save her.”

“That’s awful.”

“He was an awful man,” Ardeth says with a nod,” he would kill anyone that got in his way.”  _Including the man that wanted to take Imhotep’s mistress away_. “After Nefertari was mummified and secured in her tomb, he went to her son.”

“Ibi…. He didn’t kill the baby, did he?” All of her dreams stopped with Nefertari’s dive off her balcony, but she’d always assumed the baby had been protected. Then again, she’d always assumed her ancestor had committed suicide, but she’d been wrong about that.

“No, Ibi was the last part of his sister he had left.”

“Imhotep made a promise to the child,” Bey picks up,” a promise to protect what was left of his family.”

“He obviously saw the features you and his sister shared and connected the dots. He won’t kill you even if you were there when the chest was opened, he wouldn’t break his promise to his nephew.”

“That’s great,” AJ sighs, tightening her grip on her husband,” but I’ll still set his moldy ass on fire the second he tries to come after my family.”  

“Shall we be seated and we’ll explain what we know?” Everyone looks to Evy, the unofficial second-in-command, all of them moving to find places to sit around the room at her nod. There weren’t many flat surfaces in the room and so they had to make due; Jonathan in Seti’s chariot, Evy, Daniels, and Ardeth standing, O’Connell in one chair, Lawrence in the one across from him, AJ on a table, and Bey in the throne chair.

“We are part of an ancient secret society,” Bey declares,” and we have guarded the City of the Dead for over three thousand years. We are sworn at manhood to do any and all in our power to stop the High Priest Imhotep from being reborn into this world.

“And because of you, we have failed.” AJ lowers her head and stares down at her feet, undoing the straps to remove her heels. They were pinching her toes and she’d rather walk across hot coals than keep them on a moment longer.

“And what,” Evy demands angrily,” you think this justifies the killing of innocent people?”

“To stop this creature,” Bey asks sarcastically. “Let me think.”

“Yes,” he and Ardeth snap in unison. Evy rolls her eyes and walks away from the pair, fed up and disgusted with them. While AJ hated the thought of needless bloodshed, she also understood why the men agreed to do their job. Guilt was eating away at her because of what she’d allowed to happen back at Hamunaptra and she wouldn’t be able to forgive herself anytime soon.

“Question,” O’Connell says, raising his hand like a child in a classroom. “What’s his deal with cats?”

“According to the ancients,” Bey says,” cats are the guardians at the gates of the underworld. Imhotep will fear them until he is fully regenerated.”

“And then he will fear nothing,” Ardeth grouses with a dark look at AJ’s group. She meets his gaze again without hesitation, knowing what she did was wrong and not about to dispute that fact, but not wanting this man to think he could walk all over her. Women were gaining more respect as the years passed and she wouldn’t be the one to set that back.

“Yeah, and you know how he gets himself fully regenerated,” Daniels questions, voice cracking in his fear.

“Killin’ everyone who opened that chest,” Lawrence answers, tone quiet and even as he looked to AJ. She could see the fear in his eyes, the gray darkened by it, and AJ knew he saw them same terror in hers.

“By suckin’ them dry!”

“We have to stop him somehow,” AJ pleaded,” we can’t let him finish regenerating. Please, Ardeth, you must have found something that could be of use!” The other man shakes his head with a frown, arms crossed over his chest.

“Perhaps….” Evy trails off, slapping her brother’s arm to make him stop playing with Seti’s war bow. “I don’t know if this is any use, but when I saw him in Hamunaptra, he called me Anck-su-namun. And then he tried to kiss me back in Mister Burns’ quarters.”  Ardeth and Bey share another look, seeming to share an epiphany of some sort.

“It was because of his love for Anck-su-namun that he was cursed,” Bey starts,” apparently, even after three thousand years—”

“—He is still in love with her,” Ardeth finishes.

“As romantic as that is, what does it have to do with me,” Evy queried. “He’s only seen me twice and I have no family ties to this Anck-su-namun, so why would he focus on me like that?”

“It is because it was you who read from the Book. He has chosen you to be the human sacrifice needed to regenerate the body of his lost love.”

“Bad luck, old mum,” Jonathan mutters with a sympathetic look in Evy’s direction. That look was replaced by one of offense when AJ chucks one of her shoes at his head, narrowly missing when he ducked. “What was that for?!”

“For being an ass,” AJ yells at him. She threw her other shoe, but only succeeded in removing Seti’s head from the rest of his plastic body.

“If the two of you are quite finished acting like children, perhaps we can continue,” Ardeth snaps, picking up one of AJ’s shoes and tossing it back to her. “His infatuation with Miss Carnahan could give us more time than we planned to stop him, but tonight is the full moon and we will need all the help we can get.” Everyone stands and follows his gaze to the round window far above their heads, watching as a dark shape covered the sun to create an eclipse. “It is the moon of Osiris.”

“And he stretched forth his hand towards the heavens,” Jonathan recites,” and there was darkness throughout the land of Egypt."


	12. Lord Moldy Butt Pays a Visit

Back in the hotel, AJ had quickly changed into fresh clothes; it was bad enough that the dress allowed her bruises to be displayed, but it also smelled of mold, and she opted for simpler clothing. After a shower to make her feel clean again, she pulls on a black and gold skirt, white blouse, a black shawl to cover her arms, a black, feathered headband to keep her hair from falling in her eyes, and a pair of black shoes with low heels to make running easier.

Once satisfied, she moves out of her room and next door to her friend’s, everyone else already there. Most of the group surrounded the small table in the middle of Evy’s sitting room, but O’Connell stood by the open window where he could watch the eclipse and the soldiers pacing the walls outside.

“What about my buddy, Beni,” he was asking as AJ sat next to Jonathan.

“Nah,” Daniels says with a shake of his head,” he scrammed outta there before we opened the damn thing.”

“Yeah,” Lawrence agrees with a small smile,” he was the smart one. Kinda wishing I’d listened to him and AJ when they got so spooked.” AJ glances up at her husband, arching a brow as she popped a grape into her mouth. “Don’t give me that look, I’m not a toddler.”

“She was giving you that look long before Tuck was born, Henderson.” AJ turns the look to Daniels and he bows his head. “How was we s’posed to know that the curse wasn’t just some hocus pocus?”

“Because I told you it was real the night you asked for the story,” AJ remarks with a frown. “You were all too stubborn to listen to me. I swear, that’s how all of you damn Americans won your independence; sheer spite and hardheadedness.”

“Well,” O’Connell shrugs,” you’re not wrong there.”

“Speaking of stubborn Americans, where’s that nasty, little man that helped to get us into this mess?”

“You mean Beni?”

“Did you really have to ask?”

“That’s fair.” He scratches the back of his head and gives another shrug, his eyes bloodshot after spending hours exposed to the sand outside. “He was in Cairo before that fire storm started up, but I haven’t seen him since. Truth be told, don’t really care to run into him again. Our priority right now should be finding the good Doctor before Lord Moldy Butt does.”

“Lord Moldy Butt?”

“Did you really have to ask?”

“Touché.”

“The women stay here, you three are coming with me.” He got two feet away before the entire group began to protest, the three men wanting to stay behind while the two women were ready to go with him. In a graceful movement, he turned on his heel, put Evy over his shoulder, and continued forward into the bedroom. He drops her on the bed, walking quickly out of the room and slamming the doors closed right before Evy can reach them, using a skeleton key to lock it. “You wanna join her in there?”

“I’ve been man-handled quite enough today, thank you. The next person that tries to drag me anywhere against my will is going to lose something precious to them.” She drops her gaze for a second, O’Connell getting the hint and covering his groin with a hand. “Unless you want that to happen, then you’ll allow me to accompany you to find the Egyptologist.”

“Not happening.” He tosses the key to Daniels, leveling a threatening look in his direction. “The only reason she leaves that room before I get back is if Imhotep drops by for a visit. Got it?”

“Got it,” Daniels nods quickly, Henderson echoing the words when O’Connell looks his way.

“And you, AJ,” he turns the look to her next,” you agree to stay behind or I’ll have one of them boys downstairs sit on you until I get back.” AJ gives a reluctant nod, nibbling on another grape as O’Connell started for the door. “Get a move on, Jonathan.”

“I thought I could just—” Jonathan’s interrupted before he can even finish his sentence.

“Now!”

“Right,” he sighs, slipping his flask back into his jacket pocket,” off to save the Egyptologist.” He hurries after O’Connell, leaving the other three behind to listen to Evy’s yelling and pounding against the door.

“You look tired,” Lawrence mutters as AJ reclines in the chair as best she can, resting her feet up on the table. “Why don’t you lie down on that couch over there and try to get some sleep?”

“I’ll sleep when all of this is over,” she murmurs back even as her eyelids begin to droop. “What do you think Tucker’s doing right now?”

“Probably curling up in bed while my dad reads him a story.”

“Cowboys and robbers.” AJ manages a smile at the thought of her son, imagining him lying in his little bed at his grandparent’s house, the blanket clutched in his hands as Papa John tells him stories of the wild west.

“And the pretty bar maid that comes to the rescue.” She doesn’t protest when she feels Lawrence pick her up, one arm under her knees and the other under her back, resting her head against his shoulder and relishing the warmth he radiated. “Kitty would rescue her true love from a band of robbers and they would ride off into the sunset together.”

“Too bad stories don’t end like that in real life.”

“Who knows? Maybe this one will.” He lays her down on the couch, draping the fringed shawl over her to keep her warm. “We’ll get back to our little monkey and listen to all the adventures he had while we were away.”

“We have to or else your mother will have him singing show tunes again.” Lawrence chuckles, his breath warm against her face as he rests his forehead against hers. She allows her eyes to close, managing a few more words before sleep claims her. “I love you, honey.”

* * *

 

AJ wasn’t sure how long she’d been asleep or what had woken her up, her thoughts sluggish as she sits up on the couch, allowing the shawl to fall to the ground. Lawrence was leaning against the wall by Evy’s door, a cigarette in one hand and his Colt in the other, staring ahead of him at an empty chair.

“Did I miss anything important,” she asks, running her fingers through her hair to detangle it. Lawrence shrugs, turning his grey eyes to watch her.

“Nothin’ at all, Sleeping Beauty.”

“I doubt I look very appealing after all that’s happened.” She knew for a fact that she looked horrible, but Lawrence shook his head all the same.

“You get more beautiful every day.”

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you.” She stands, fixing her headpiece again, then crosses the room to her husband. “You, on the other hand, look just as dashing as you did when we first met.” She grins up at him, rising up onto her toes to place a kiss on his lips. They were soft against hers, fitting perfectly as though the two of them were made for each other.

He was smiling as she pulled away, putting his cigarette out in the ashtray before focusing his attention back on her. “Keep the flattery up and we might accidentally make another kid.”

“I wouldn’t mind.”

“Yeah, I miss having a baby that I could carry with me everywhere.” Only two years old, Tucker was quickly taking after his father where his energy was concerned and he hated being held for longer than five minutes unless he was tired or sick. “We could always repaint Tucker’s old crib since he’s in his big boy bed.”

“And I could easily sew a new cover for the car-seat if it’s a little girl.”

“We could name her after my granny, nickname and all.” AJ nods, already in love with the name Dorothea, though they would have hell finding a suitable middle name. “If we get pregnant now, then we should have her by April.”

“Let’s survive the crazed mummy and then we can have another baby.”

“Good plan.” She laughs at how determined he looked, leaning against the wall and turning her gaze to what had held his attention before she woke up. The chair wasn’t empty like she’d thought, occupied by Lawrence’s canopic jar.

“Can we please throw that thing out?” AJ didn’t wait for his reply, walking the few feet over to the chair to pick up the falcon-head jar, and then striding over to the open window. She could just make out the sentries patrolling outside, the sky darkening even further as true night began to descend on the world. Something else caught her eye as she leaned out, a strange form standing below in the streets, seeming to sway with the wind. “What on earth is that?”

“What’s what, honey?” Her brows furrowed, AJ leans out a little further, squinting her eyes as if that would help her make out the person. She could tell the person was muscled just from how large he seemed to be, black robes billowing as the wind started to pick up. That’s when it started, the swaying form morphing into pile of sand that began to spin wildly, rising through the air and towards the window. “AJ?” The canopic jar falls out of her hand as she takes a step back in surprise, the sand shooting through the window and catching the jar before it could break.

The force of the whirlwind knocked AJ backwards, the impact with the ground knocking the air out of her lungs. Imhotep returned to his physical form as she opened her eyes. He was nearly human-looking again, some golden skin covering the bones and muscle. She tried desperately to suck in air as he delivered a sharp backhand to Lawrence that had him flying through the air and colliding with a wall.

Blinking away the black spots in her vision and still gasping, she stumbles to her feet and grabs the ashtray. She may not have the best aim, but the turquoise-painted bowl still struck Imhotep’s back hard enough to get his attention. With more bravery than she felt, AJ stood her ground as the mummy stalks back over to her. She’s never felt so absolutely terrified or so full of rage before, the mixture causing her to do the last thing she'd ever expected.

She punches the walking corpse right in his face.

"Not my husband, you bitch," she snarls at him, standing protectively in front of Lawrence. Imhotep matched her glare with one of his own, growling something in ancient Egyptian. "If you want to consummate the curse so badly, then use me. But, I swear to Allah, I'll put you back in the ground if you touch my husband again!"

With a growl, Imhotep grabs her by her throat, dragging her closer to him so that he could look into her eyes. They were the same dark brown as his, the same streaks of amber, and she knew she couldn’t deny the family ties they shared. “ _Senet_.”

“ _Sat_.” It was the word for daughter, she knew that much, but it could also be used for niece and it seemed Imhotep understood that much. He knew she wasn’t actually his sister, just that they shared a bloodline. She pulls at his wrist, wanting his hand off her even if it was made of flesh. “Stop!”

“ _Sat_.” He releases her and takes a step to the side, looking over at Lawrence as the other man slowly raises his head. “ _Wa’ew_.” AJ racks her brain for that word, remembering it from he dreams whenever Imhotep referred to Iason. _Soldier,_ _right?_ She couldn’t be sure, kneeling beside her husband and helping to sit him up.

“Hurt him and you hurt me.” She knew he didn’t understand a lick of English or modern Arabic, but he did seem to understand her body language. She would die before she saw her husband murdered, before she allowed something foul to take Lawrence away from their son.

“Anck-su-namun.” He outstretches a hand, sand exploding from it and wrapping around the couple, binding them tightly together. Confident and smug, Imhotep moves over to the closed doors of Evy’s bedroom, turning into sand and slipping through the keyhole. AJ and Lawrence put up a struggle against the swirling sand, the grains rubbing her arms raw as it continued to tighten around them like rope.

“Daniels,” Lawrence shouts, hoping their friend would be able to hear him. “Evelyn, wake your ass up! Help!” It wasn’t two seconds later when the doors to the room opened again, admitting O’Connell and Jonathan. “He’s here!”

“Where is he,” O’Connell demands, scooping Cleo up into his arms as the cat tried to run past.

“Evy’s room!” The American kicks the doors open, Evy’s muffled screams becoming more pronounced.

“Get your hands off my girl, pal!” Imhotep growls something, but AJ didn’t even attempt to translate as she continued to strain against the binding. “I thought that’d be your reaction, so I brought a friend along.” There’s a resounding shriek from the bedroom, then the sand surrounding them suddenly dropped to the ground, the pair falling to the side.

“You okay?” She just groans, getting to her feet and then helping Lawrence up as well. “I’m never going anywhere near sand again.” Daniels chose that moment to rejoin them in the suite, holding two glasses of what AJ assumed was bourbon.

“I miss the excitement,” he asks, taking in the Hendersons’ disheveled appearances and that fact that the other two men had their guns out.

“What the hell took you so long?!”


	13. Patience is a Virtue

The cold night air whipping around them made AJ happy she’d grabbed her discarded shawl at the last minute. She was squished between Lawrence and Daniels in the backseat of Jonathan’s convertible, driving quickly through the streets and back to the museum to find the onyx slab that was supposed to hold the location of the golden book. “Somehow, I doubt we’ll ever get to ride off into the sunset,” AJ admits to Lawrence, resting her head on his shoulder.

“C’mon, you’re supposed to be the optimistic one out of all of us.”

“I thought that was supposed to be you.”

“How is it possible that the two of you can find room for small talk at a time like this,” Daniels grumbles, shooting the couple a glare. “For cryin’ out loud, we have a three thousand year old corpse on its way to suck us dry, but y’all want to argue about who the optimist is. And that’s me, by the way,  _I’m_  the optimist of our group!” AJ and Lawrence share a look before focusing back on the fuming man beside them.

“Then we’re in big trouble,” Lawrence snorts.

“I think I already established that,” O’Connell states as they park in front of the museum. “You remember, right? Earlier today when Tall, Dark, and Ugly tried to use us all as bowling pins.” Despite the seriousness of the situation, he still managed a smile that was contagious, a soft laugh escaping AJ as he helps her out of the car.

“Right, but you said  _serious_   _trouble_.”

“It’s the same difference, Henderson.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night.” Inside the lobby of the museum, Ardeth and Bey were waiting impatiently, Evy walking right past them and starting up the staircase that leads to the second floor.

“What can you tell us about what you’re looking for,” AJ asks, hurrying to catch up with her friend. Evy was a good few inches taller than her, but AJ still had enough raw energy to be able to match the other woman’s stride.

“Well, according to legend, the black book your group found at Hamunaptra was supposed to bring people back from the dead. Until now, it was a notion I was unwilling to believe for obvious reasons.”

“Well, for obvious reasons, I’m a firm believer.”

“Yeah,” O’Connell scoffs,” apparently our buddy wanted to prove all of us wrong.”

“If AJ is anything to go off of, then he must have been a stubborn man,” Evy concedes, patting AJ’s arm in sympathy when she lets out a noise of offense,” and he’s probably just as stubborn now. My thinking is that, if the black book can bring people back to life, then the gold one can kill him.”

“And to make sure he stays dead,” Henderson adds,” I’m takin’ his head back to America and burying it in Oklahoma with all of ‘em Indian bones.” One look from AJ has his smile disappearing, shaking his head in unison with her. “Or I could just chunk it into the Nile and not bring it home with us.”

“You’re getting warmer,” AJ assures him,” but if you decapitate the mummy and then pick up the head, I’m making you sleep on the couch for a week.” He frowns, bringing up his hands to count out something.

“That would make it difficult to have little Dot by April, though.” AJ was about to retort that it was a sacrifice she was willing to make when a moaning sound from outside interrupted. All of their group turn to look behind them, walking over to the window; it was large and overlooked the courtyard, giving them a perfect view of a sickly mob heading their way, chanting as they went.

“ _Imhotep…. Imhotep…. Imhotep…._ ” Over and over again, like a mantra, their skin riddled with sores and their eyes glazed over in a trance.

“Last but certainly not least,” Jonathan quips,” my favorite plague, boils and sores.”

“They have become his slaves,” Ardeth announces grimly, none of them taking their eyes off the sight below. Some of the mob carried torches to light the way, at least two hundred people making it up, and Imhotep amongst them in all his horrible glory. “The beginning of the end has begun at last.”

“I miss the locusts,” AJ mutters,” locusts just got into everything, but they didn’t want to eat me or my family.”

“You’re not going to be his feast while I’m still around,” Evy snaps.

“Yeah, but he’s going to put his dead girlfriend into you, so you’re just as doomed as the rest of us.”

“Yes, but I have something you don’t.” She turns on her heel and marches over to the large chunk of stone in the middle of the hall, the others running after her. “Confidence is key, AJ!”

“I’ll be confident again when I’m back in Texas and the only creature I have to deal with is my mother-in-law!” Below, the mob begins to bang against the massive gates that lead to the inner courtyard of the museum. Evy studies the top half to the stone, Bey dropping to his knees to decipher the bottom while Evy continues to educate the others in the room.

“According to Bembridge scholars, the  _Book of Amun-Ra_  is meant to be in the statue of Anubis.”

“That’s where we found the black book,” Daniels reminds her.

“I always said my sister was smarter than those snotty Bembridge boys,” Jonathan states proudly, patting his sister on the shoulder. “So where are we meant to find the book we actually need?”

“I’m working on it,” Evy replies, reading as quickly as she could. AJ moves over to the balcony, a knot forming in her stomach as she waited for the angry crowd to burst inside. “The golden book must be inside….” There’s a loud bang that signaled the mob breaching the gates outside, AJ instinctively holding out a hand, Lawrence doing the same and clutching hers tightly. She didn’t want to die like this, not when she was still young and her son wasn’t old enough to remember her.

“Come on, Evy, faster.”

“Patience is a virtue," Evy sings without turning from the stone. The doors to the museum come crashing down and the mob swarm inside like angry wasps, still shouting as they begin to comb through the rooms on the first floor.

“Not right now, it isn’t,” O’Connell retorts with an annoyed look. “Jon, car, now!” Jonathan nods and sprints off to go down the back stairs while Evy and Bey continued to read. “Whatever happens, you and Evy stick together,” he instructs, gently pushing AJ to stand next to the other woman. “If nothing else, you two can spout out random facts until he grows annoyed and blows his brains out.”

“I know where it is! The golden  _Book of Amun-Ra_  is at Hamunaptra inside the statue of Horus.”

“That’s perfect,” Daniels whines,” another trip to the city that wants all of us dead! What else could possibly go wrong?” Two boil-covered men charge out of a doorway with their weapons raised, Ardeth and O’Connell quickly fending them off and pushing them over the balcony.

“You really had to ask,” AJ barked, slapping the back of his head.

“Yeah, yeah, ground me when we make it back to Texas!” He and Lawrence each grab one of her arms and practically drag her with them after Jonathan, all of them sprinting through the back doors and running for the car. “Let’s move!” At the shout, Jonathan starts the car, allowing the group to pile inside before peeling out.

“Imhotep,” Beni screams as he comes out the front door to catch them, not making a move to stop them since he knew he’d just be shot. “Imhotep, they’re escaping!”

“You’re gonna get yours, Beni,” O’Connell shouts as they speed past the Hungarian rat,” you’re gonna get yours!” As one, the mob begins to pour back out of the museum at Imhotep’s screech, chasing the convertible through the abandoned bazaar. “Is everyone okay?”

“As okay as it’s possible to be right now,” Lawrence breathes, holding AJ in his lap so that the others could fit comfortably. “Watch out!” Jonathan slams on his breaks, causing everyone in the backseat to jerk forward and AJ to bump heads with O’Connell. Several feet in front of them was another fraction of the mob, drooling and swaying from side to side.

“Oh no,” AJ moans as she recognizes one of the diseased men,” not Cas.” He was standing in the front, turban partly undone and hanging over his shoulders. Lawrence tightens his hold around her waist, drawing his Colt with his free hand and pulling the hammer back. Having no connection to anyone in the group of attackers, O’Connell didn’t hesitate before slamming his foot down over Jonathan’s, making the car accelerate and hit the mob.

Several of the group are thrown sideways from the impact, some driven over, but even more just grabbed on and reached out for the people in the car. They clung to the front and the sides, grasping and pulling, trying their best to drag everyone out. AJ does her best with what she has, removing both of her shoes and using them to batter her attackers, using all the strength she had.

They seemed to keep coming, two more replacing every one that was removed, like the heads of a Hydra. “Hands—off—my—wife,” Lawrence growls, punctuating each word with a bullet and then pistol-whipping the men when he runs out.

“Henderson,” Daniels shouts, AJ turning in time to spot two of the men pulling him backwards by his arms. “Henderson!” The others were busy fending them off, so AJ maneuvered over Ardeth and the Curator, using one hand to beat at the attacker with a shoe while the other grasped the front of Daniels’ shirt.

“I’ve got you,” she grunts, holding him as tightly as she could.

“Don’t let me go!”

“Daniels!” Ardeth quickly grabs the back of her shawl and pulls her back into the car as Daniels is pulled the rest of the way out, gunshots ringing out as he pushed his way past. “Daniels!”

“AJ, he’s gone,” Lawrence shouts, pulling her back over to him and handing her the shoe she’d dropped to grab their friend. They round the corner, Jonathan unable to stop before they crash into a stone fountain. “Everybody out!” Lawrence and O’Connell are the first to jump out, helping the two women before walking backwards. The crowd had boxed them in, forming a semicircle around them and chanting again.

“ _Imhotep…. Imhotep…. Imhotep…._ ”

“Lawrence,” AJ croaks, looking into her husband’s eyes,” you know I love you, right? I love more than I ever loved anyone aside from our baby, I love you more than Isis loves Osiris, and I always will.”

“And I love you more than that,” he asserts, resting a hand on the small of her back as the crowd began to part. “I swear to you, if something happens to me, I’m gonna hunt you down in the next life. I don’t care if I have to punch your god right in his face, I’m coming back for you.”

“And I’ll tear Heaven apart until I have you in my arms again.” The crowd around them goes silent, AJ and Lawrence turning their gazes to Imhotep, almost fully regenerated as he strides up to them. His expression was stern and hateful when he glanced in AJ’s direction, but softened a little as he looked to Evy. Beni follows behind, shoulders hunched and head lowered.

“ _Keetah mi pharos, aja nilo, isirlan_ ,” Imhotep implores, allowing Beni to translate.

“Come with me, my princess,” Beni echoes. “It is time to make you mine forever.” Both men had eyes only for Evy, making it clear who Imhotep’s top priority is.

“For all eternity, idiot,” Evy corrects out of instinct, glaring at them. Beni frowns, mumbling what Imhotep had said under his breath and then giving a slight nod when he realized Evy was right.

“ _Koontash dai na_ ,” Imhotep promises, though AJ was still lost. Her ancient Egyptian was limited to a few words she’d picked up from her dreams and the ones he spoke now were never brought up while she was sleeping.

“Take my hand, and I will spare your friends,” Beni translates again, breathing a sigh of relief when he’s not corrected a second time.

“Any bright ideas,” Evy asks O’Connell, panic lacing her words.

“I’m working on it,” he responds a little too quickly, holding a torch up like a weapon.

“Work a little faster because you’re the first one I’m coming after if he turns me into a mummy.”

“Wasn’t it you who said patience was a virtue?” They share a long look, the love obvious to everyone else even if the wasn’t to the pair of them just yet.

“And wasn’t it you who reminded me that it wasn’t in a situation like this?” She moves up onto her toes and presses a kiss against O’Connell’s cheek, surprising him enough that she’s able to move to Imhotep’s side before he could intervene.

“I don’t think so.” Ardeth grabs him, stopping him from provoking the creature that held their lives in the palm of his hand.

“He must take me to Hamunaptra to perform the ritual.” AJ can read between the lines, realizing Evy was giving them time to come up with a solid rescue plan instead of charging in headfirst. Imhotep’s eyes land on AJ next and he nods to the empty space next to him.

“Oh, hell no,” Lawrence snarls, holding onto AJ’s wrist with enough force to bruise. “You don’t need her!”

“Lawrence,” AJ hisses, turning to face him. “I’ll do my best to keep Imhotep distracted from his plans and keep Evy safe, but you have to help the others find a way to kill him for good. You can do this.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

“You don’t have a choice.” Shoes in hand, she moves away from the others and stands at her ancestor’s side, wincing when he grasps her arm in his cold hand. He may have been mostly regenerated, but he was still cold as clay.

“I’ll be seeing you again,” O’Connell promises with a dark look, Imhotep only smiling. He turns and forces the women to walk with him, tightening his grip when they begin to struggle at his next command of  _pared oos_. AJ wasn’t entirely sure what the phrase meant, but she knew that the surging crowd could only result in one ending.

_He’s going to kill them all!_

 


	14. Recruiting Winston

Henderson looks around in slight confusion, taking in the miles of sand surrounding them and the World War I biplane situated not far from the front gate. They’ve been driving all night and part of the morning, further and further into the desert, only to stop in an almost abandoned village and Henderson was more confused than he was two hours ago. “Who the hell are we gonna meet all the way out here,” he asks the Medjai on his right.

“A friend of O’Connell’s,” he answers, looking just as lost as Henderson was.

“Could this guy be any vaguer?” Ardeth remains quiet and Henderson lets out a frustrated sigh, following the others out of the banged up convertible. They would have to walk from here, allowing O’Connell to take the lead with Henderson making up the rear.

“Morning, Winston,” O’Connell greets when they can make out a few blurs at the top of one of the larger dunes. “A word?”

“Winston? You’re asking that drunk geezer from the Casbah for help?” O’Connell sends him a look and Henderson presses his lips together in a firm line. How the hell was an old guy that probably couldn’t even remember how to tie his boots going to help them rescue the women? What, is he going to talk Imhotep’s ear off about the good ol’ days?

“O’Connell,” the old man calls to them as they climb the dune, waiting until they’re closer to speak again. He was seated in an old wicker chair, a gramophone playing music that wasn’t to Henderson’s liking, shaded by a large umbrella with a boy standing off to the side to wait on him. “You only seek me out when you’ve got a problem, so what’s it got to do with His Majesty’s Royal Air Corps?”

“Not a damn thing,” O’Connell says honestly. Winston sets his tea aside, interested in the answer.

“Is it dangerous?”

“Well, you probably won’t live through it.”

“By Jove, do you really think so?”

“Everyone else we’ve bumped into had died, why not you,” Jonathan answers dryly, driving the point home that it was basically a suicide mission. Henderson didn’t care if he lived or died as long as he knew his wife would make it home in one piece. He loved her too much to see her go before him.

“What’s the mission, then?”

“The usual,” Henderson replies grimly,” save a few damsels, try to keep the world from ending, and, here’s a new one, kill a dead guy.” A broad grin brightens the old man’s face and he stands quicker than any man his age should be able to, saluting their unofficial leader.

“Winston Havlock, at your service, sir!” Henderson offers up a halfhearted salute of his own for the old guy, then lets his hand drop to his side as he looks to Ardeth.

“So why did Imhotep have to kidnap my wife? He didn’t seem pleased to see her when he showed up.”

“He intends to keep the promise he made to his nephew,” Ardeth answers as they follow Winston over to the biplane. “He will either keep her close to ensure her absolute safety from things he disapproves of—“ A meaningful glance in Henderson’s direction “—Or he will simply try and resurrect his younger sister and put her into your wife’s body.”

“AJ won’t let him kill her or anyone else.”

“He will not give her the choice.” Henderson clenches his jaw tightly, anger surging through his veins like fire at the thought of someone trying to harm the love of his life. He’s been with her for nine years now, married for five, and he’d be damned before he allowed his son to grow up without a mother.

And how could she defend herself against a fucking mummy? She may be sassy and intelligent, but she wasn’t physically strong enough to fight off a man of Imhotep’s size. “Trust me, buddy, my wife’s too stubborn not to put up a fight.”

* * *

Henderson had never liked planes, not even the smaller one his father used for crop-dusting, so the fact that he was seated directly behind O’Connell and not actually  _inside_  the plane had him hating them even more. The biplane only had two seats, O’Connell and Winston taking them while everyone else just tried to hang on for dear life.

Henderson was just glad he’d drawn the long straw and was able to lie out on the tail, Ardeth and Jonathan each having to choose a wing and hope they weren’t thrown off. There’s a machine gun mounted near Henderson’s head and he hoped like hell that it wouldn’t need to be fired anytime soon because it would be a hell of a lot louder than his pistol was.

“You doin’ okay,” O’Connell shouts over the wind.

“Don’t you talk to me right now, boy,” Henderson screams up at him, miffed about being tied down. His bad mood only got worse when he looked to the side and took in the enormous sand tornado—at least, that’s what he was calling it. Being from Texas, he’s seen his fair share of tornadoes and he’s helped rebuild houses in his state and in the states that surrounded him, and this one was barely an F-3.

_Where’s a siren when you need one?_

At least this was way out in the desert where any human with some sense wouldn’t be; no houses to rebuild, lives to mourn, or a certain black cat that won’t be named to chase down the street because Tucker refused to go into the cellar without the damn thing.

The howling of the wind picks up and Henderson glanced at O’Connell in time to see the other man’s blue eyes go wide as he stared at something over Henderson’s head. “Oh, my God,” he moaned in fear.

“What,” Henderson shouts, wrapping his arms tighter around the metal beneath him,” what is it now?!”

“Winston, peddle a little faster!” Henderson lets out a shriek as the plan nosedives over a cliff, closing his eyes as the ground rose up faster and faster.  _We’re gonna die, we’re gonna die! I’m too young to be murdered by an old geezer with a death wish! God, old buddy, I’ll go to church every Sunday from now until I’m too old to walk if you get me out of this alive_.

And then the plane leveled out, Henderson letting out a breath of relief. “Thank Christ,” Henderson croaks. The noise only grows louder as O’Connell starts firing off round after round into whatever is chasing them through the skies. As Henderson began to relax again, they were hit by a wall of sand, the air knocked out of him as it swirled around them tightly and the plane spun out of control.

_We had a deal, you celestial asshole!_

He tries desperately to suck in some oxygen, but only succeeds in getting a mouthful of coarse sand. This was the worst week of his life and that was counting the time he’d showed up to a job interview in just a pair of boxers and one of his dad’s ties.

Just as suddenly as the sand hit, it fell away, leaving the little plane to slam into the ground with enough force to break it apart. Henderson groans, pulling out his pocket knife and cutting through the rope, crying out as he slid off the plane and hit the earth.

“Everyone okay,” O’Connell asks from beside him.

“Not even remotely,” he pants as he sits up,” I think my stomach fell out when we did the nosedive.”

“Excuse me,” Jonathan exclaims from his wing, now a good seven feet from the body of the plane,” a little help would be appreciated if it’s not too much trouble!” Henderson leaves that chore to O’Connell, getting up on unsteady legs and stumbling a few feet away from the deathtrap, spitting the sand out of his mouth.

“I think I broke my pride.” A loud groaning sound makes him jump backwards on instinct, looking around for the threat when he notices the body of the plane beginning to sink into the sand.

“Quicksand,” Ardeth warns, grabbing Henderson’s sleeve and pulling him back a few more feet to safer ground. Winston, unmoving, went down with the plane, buried like all the other men he’d fought with during the war. Henderson lowers his head and mutters a quick prayer for the man’s soul, his Christian upbringing something he always fell back on.

“Don’t give Jesus too much trouble up there, Winston.”


	15. Back to Hamunaptra

AJ has seen a lot of disturbing things in her lifetime—Lawrence’s mother in a bathing suit, Wingtip shoes, and baggy pants for example—but none of them held a candle to the sight now burned into her retinas. It was Imhotep, his muscles on display with only two garments to keep him somewhat modest. Now, she could handle his gauzy, black robe that dragged behind him on the cold stone of the Necropolis, but it was the other one that really made her want to gouge her eyes out.

He was wearing a damn speedo.

“Keep moving!” AJ looks over her shoulder at Beni, a sneer making itself known when he meets her gaze after shoving her friend with his gun. He seems to be in a worse mood than usual, obviously as pleased as the two women were to be back in Hamunaptra. Then again, it may have something to do with the fact that AJ and Evy both and slapped him silly for landing on them when they were all tossed out of the  _fasset el 'afreet_.

“You know, nasty little fellows such as yourself always get their comeuppance,” Evy informs him with a hateful look. Beni gives a mocking laugh, then turns serious as her words really sunk in. After all he’s done in his life, he’s going to get one massive punishment when his time comes and AJ hopes he suffers.

“They do?”

“I’ve always been told that your punishment is ten times worse than your sins,” AJ adds with a nod, facing forward again and continuing down the stairs after Imhotep _. Further into the darkness we go, following the bringer of death. Boy, could this day get any worse?_

**Henderson**

“Take those bigger stones from the top,” Jonathan instructs from behind the other three, content to be a bystander as they worked on digging out a collapsed doorway. “No, the bigger ones, Henderson! I said from the top or it’ll collapse even further.” Henderson grits his teeth and does his best to ignore the man, sweat stinging his eyes as he worked.

 _AJ thinks of him as a brother, so you can’t kill him_.

“Come on now, put your backs into it.” In unison, the three men all stopped what they were doing and straightened up to look at the Brit. Not only were all of them taller, but they were stronger and Jonathan quickly realized his mistake. “I’m sure you’re doing it this way because you know more than I do.” He laughs nervously as O’Connell and Ardeth go back to work, but Henderson just narrows his eyes. “Oh please, you can’t hurt me because your wife will hit you with her shoe.”

“If that weren’t true, I’d punch you right now,” Henderson promises, pointing at him in the way only parents can make look threatening. “And I still might if you keep yammering.” With that, Henderson returns to pulling the heavy rocks out of the doorway Ardeth had led them to, cursing under his breath as he scratches his hand against the jagged stone. He wasn’t sure why AJ only ever used her shoe to smack the misbehaving people around her, but he knew those things hurt worse than the switch his father used.

“Gents, you should come and have a look at this.”

“Just ignore him,” O’Connell grunts when Henderson goes tense,” he’s not worth the shoe imprint AJ would leave on your ass.”

“She got you, too, huh,” Henderson asks, both of them working on one of the larger stones together.

“Oh yeah, I learned never to make fun of her prayer schedule.” Henderson had learned that too during the first week of their relationship; nine years later and he’s still afraid to even talk about the Godawful earliness that she’s required to get up. They had just gotten the stone moved when Jonathan lets out a panicked squeal behind them, all three of them turning to look at him.

“What?!”

“It’s my arm,” Jonathan screams, holding his left arm away from him like it was contaminated,” it’s in my arm!” The three men move to Jonathan’s side, Ardeth and Henderson getting a good hold on the squirming man to hold him still while O’Connell rips Jonathan’s shirt sleeve open. “Do something!”

“Whoa!” Just beneath the skin close to his shoulder, there was a small bulge moving upwards at a fast speed. Henderson wasn’t entirely sure what that thing was, but he knew he’d be screaming like a little girl if it was under his skin. “Hold him tighter!” He and Ardeth do their best, O’Connell flicking his butterfly knife open.

“No, not that! I can live with the bug, make him pay rent, or— Ahh!” The sharp steel bites into the flesh of Jon’s arm, wrenching a scream from his throat as O’Connell twists it in deeper, then flicks it outward. A small, black beetle is flung out of the wound, landing a few feet away and scrambling to its feet right as O’Connell pulled out his pistol and blew the bug to Kingdom Come.

“Easy there,” Henderson cautions, ripping off the ruined sleeve of Jonathan’s shirt and tying it over the wound. “We’ll have AJ stitch you up as soon as we get back to Cairo. Hell, if you’re nice she might even make it look like a lightning bolt.”

**AJ**

“ _I never had but one true love and in a cold grave he was laid_ ,” she sings quietly, trying to steady the mixed emotions roiling inside of her _,” I’ll do as much for my true love as any young girl may_.” AJ makes quick work crossing the bridge, trying her best not to look down at the stagnant water below, and letting out a sigh of relief when her feet hit the floor on the other side. Her temper was doing a good job of covering her fear, the fact that her husband might be dead was enough to keep her in a place of nerves and rage.

Noticing she was lagging behind, Imhotep nudges her ahead of him, rougher than needed. She scowls at him over her shoulder, but continues down the next set of stairs and into a chamber that was just as derelict as the others they’d passed through. Imhotep pushes past her and over to an altar, setting the canopic jars on the top along with the _Book of the Dead_ , spreading them out meticulously.

“….  _I’ll sit and mourn out on his grave_ ,” she continued, sticking close to Evy,”  _for twelve months and a day_.” The echoing of a gunshot shuts her up, all of them glancing around and trying to figure out which direction it came from.

“O’Connell,” Evy breathes, sharing an eager smile with AJ.

“They’re alive.” Imhotep barely pauses in his work, tipping the contents of a jar into his hand and then blowing the dust onto a nearby wall. Hieroglyphics made up most of the dark slab of stone, but there was a man on either side, their hands outstretched like they were both reaching for something precious. A low groaning sound rises and falls in the chamber and then the sound of crumbling stone as two decaying mummies broke out of the wall. “Oh shit.”

“Bembridge scholars never wrote about this.” Beni, Evy, and AJ moved as one as they backed away from the wall, Evy having to beat at the rat to make him release her arm while AJ just grabbed onto the silk sleeve of Evy’s robe. “Get off of me! This is all your fault!” She couldn’t look away from the scene, taking in the black pits where eyes should have been and the way she could see straight through their ribcages to their spines.

The two creatures bow to Imhotep despite the way they were struggling not to fall to pieces, the obedience leading AJ to believe they must have been priests once. They were loyal to their master, willing to break all the sacred laws for his approval, and he would order them about for as long as it pleased him. The corpses straighten from the bow, still hunched over after centuries of being locked inside the wall, and start down the passageway to kill the rescuers.

“Honey,” AJ murmurs, touching her gold wedding ring,” kick their undead asses.” Knowing she could at least create a distraction to keep Evy alive longer, AJ swallows her nerves and what's left of her dignity before jumping up onto Imhotep's back. She wraps her arms and legs around him tightly, holding on for dear life when he struggles underneath her.

“What on earth are you doing,” Evy shouts, just staring in shock at the scene.

“My best!” Beneath her, Imhotep snarls something in Hebrew and twists violently to the side, jarring AJ enough that her grasp loosens. Before she had the chance to tighten it again, he’s thrown her off him and has her pinned against what she’s dubbed ‘Mummy Wall.’ “Run, Evy!”

“I’m not leaving you here alone!” Imhotep tightens his hold on AJ’s throat, cutting off her air supply.  _So much for him keeping that promise to Ibi_. She claws at his wrist, instinctively gasping for breath and unable to get any. “Let her go!” AJ couldn’t see, but she was almost certain Evy had begun slapping Imhotep’s back. “Let her go now!” AJ lets out a desperate squeak, her head aching and her heart beating faster to compensate for the lack of oxygen.

“ _Sat_ ,” Imhotep growls down at her, like it was the worst of all curses. Black spots swam in front of her and her struggles became sluggish, a ringing sound starting up that drowned out whatever else he growls down at her.

Her arms fell limply to her sides, her eyes closed, and then she knew nothing as she collapsed on the ground.

**_Fasset el 'afreet =_ “Ghost wind”, it’s what the Egyptians call a dust devil _._**

**Sorry I didn’t post this sooner, y’all, I went on a trip to Stillwater so I could buy up a crap load of books and movies from Hastings before they went out of business! Got me a nice Ghostbusters (1984 version) cup, too :)**


	16. Mummies "R" Us

Henderson squeezes through a crevice and into another room, looking around as Jonathan squeezed through after him. The room was just as dark as the others they’d left behind, but their torchlight didn’t seem to penetrate the darkness like it had in the long hallways. A thin stream of light managed to sneak in through a hole in the ceiling, allowing Henderson to make out the gleam of something several feet away from him.

O’Connell notices the light too, bringing out a pistol and shooting at the mirrored disk AJ had told Burns of on their first day, the mirror catching the light and bouncing from one disk to another until the entire room was lit up.

“Neat trick,” Henderson admits,” wish Burns could’ve seen it.” All four of them stare at the treasure below them, spreading outward for miles, just pile upon pile of golden statues and trinkets. “Congrats, boys, we make it out of here alive and we’ll be rich.”

“The key word in that sentence is  _alive_ ,” O’Connell remarks, getting a better grip on his rifle and leading the way down the stairs. Henderson reaches out and pulls a string of pearls out of one pile when they reach flat ground again, stuffing it in his pocket for later. AJ had always said she wanted a pearl necklace, but she was too cheap to actually buy one; now he could give her the necklace as an incentive to keep her head attached to her shoulders.

“How much do you think is in this place?”

“Too much to carry by ourselves,” Jonathan frowns,” but maybe with all those camels….”

“This is Seti’s treasure,” Ardeth says with a scolding look,” it is not for anyone that is not of his family.” Henderson and Jonathan share a look, both clasping their hands behind their backs from where they’d tried to reach for more treasure, whistling innocently. They make it a few feet further when a strangled grunting makes them spin to face the way they’d come from, a bandaged arm bursting out of the sand, followed by a head and shoulders.

“What the—” More mummies start digging their way out of the earth, grunting and panting as they clawed the hardened sand away from them.

“Who the hell are these guys,” O’Connell demands.

“Well, we only know one dead guy,” Henderson surmises. “I’ll let you guess three times, but if you get it wrong, then I’m throwing you to our buddies and runnin’.”

“Yeah, that’s fair.” Henderson brings the spare rifle up, making sure it was pressed tightly against his shoulder, and then squeezes the trigger, watching as the lead bullets shattered ribs and parts of skulls as the mummies got to their feet. More and more of them filled the room and Henderson’s gun clicked as it emptied, leaving him to use it as a bat instead.

“Come on, you sons a bitches!”

“Save it for later!” O’Connell yanked on the back of his shirt, pulling him after the others and out of the room. “Reload and I’ll cover you.” Henderson shoulders the rifle and pulls out his Colts, loading them with steady fingers and then readying them to be fired. “Jonathan, you keep us going in the right direction!”

“Right,” Jonathan calls back, leading the way with the torch. Henderson just hopes that the Horus statue was close by or they may all be turned into mummy chow before they even get the chance to play the handsome rescuers. “Left now!” The other three turn on command, walking backwards as they fired at the mummies.

“This whole place in coming alive!”

“It’s Imhotep,” Ardeth agrees,” he must have enough priests to perform the ritual and kill us.”  _Imhotep can kiss my all American ass, too!_  “He has to have Anck-su-namun at his side to be fully invincible and he should be close to sacrificing Evelyn!”

“No need to remind me, pal, I got it.”

“Another right,” Jonathan instructs. Henderson reloads again, shooting at one of the crawling torsos that had grabbed his ankle.  _Man, I’m gonna have to burn these pants if I get out of here_. He liked the slacks too, they matched the other two pairs he had at home and really made his ass look good. “Straight ahead!”

“Horus, you pointy-eared bastard,” Henderson grins,” you’re a sight for sore eyes!” He moves to kneel next to Jonathan at the base of the statue, Ardeth and O’Connell joining them a second later just before an explosion sounds. Henderson covers his ears too late, poking his head around the corner to see mummy pieces and a huge fire burning in the entryway. “You just wanted to use your Dynamite, didn’t ya?”

“Couldn’t hold off any longer,” O’Connell grins. “Get down here and help us with this, Henderson.” He scoots around to the front of the statue, helping Jonathan and O’Connell push the sand away from the base.

“Don’t suppose any of y’all actually know where the lid is?”

“You suppose right.” The sand had piled up over the years, but it wasn’t hard-packed and it took only a few minutes to get it completely cleared away. Once that was done and the base wiped down, the three of them were able to make out a crease just big enough for their fingers, going all the way around this side of the base.

“Found it.”

“You’re just so useful today.” As Ardeth started reloading the shotgun O’Connell had brought along, the other three start working on the edges of the lid. It was harder than it looked, the space between the stone and the lid almost too narrow for their fingers. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the familiar groaning of undead lackeys started up in the only corridor that O’Connell hadn’t blown up. “Damn, these guys just don’t give up, do they?”

“Keep digging,” Ardeth commands, chambering a round and heading for the creepy passageway. The lid slowly becomes easier to pull on, their fingers fitting perfectly in the seam. In fact, it was all going so well that Henderson was just wondering what would screw it to hell when skeletal hands burst out of the ground beneath him.

“Goddamn it,” he snarls, beating against the torsos that followed. These things were as bad as cockroaches, the loss of a head not stopping two of them from picking him up and throwing him across the room. “Well, there goes my dignity.” He grunts, trying to sit up only to have Jonathan thrown on top of him; O’Connell is next, landing just inches away from Henderson’s arm. “For Christ’s sakes, can’t we catch a break?”

He pushes Jon off of him and rises up onto his arms as two mummies shuffle closer, another two kneeling on the ground and working at the lid. That’s when he remembered what had happened with the Anubis statue, remembered what those diggers had looked like after they got a face full of pressurized acid.

“Get back,” he shouts to the other two, crawling as far from Horus as he could with his head turned to the side. “Keep your eyes closed!” The acid sprays out, coating the four mummies with only a few drops splashing against the front of Henderson’s legs. “Fuckin’—” He frowns, tugging the ruined material away from his legs as the skin began to burn.

“There’s your break,” O’Connell says, gesturing at the stilled forms of their attackers. “Now, how about we get the damn book and find the women?”

“Sounds like a good plan to me.” They scramble back over to the opened base, Henderson and Jonathan pulling out a plain wooden box. The book inside could almost pass as the  _Book of the Dead’s_  twin, made of gold instead of onyx with the eye of Ra carved into the center of the lock.

“The  _Book of Amun-Ra_ ,” Jonathan breathes with a smile that Henderson shared. “I’ve never been so happy to see a book before.”

“Save the tears for after you get out of here,” Ardeth remarks, looking at them over his shoulder. “Do what I could not finish, kill the creature.” The Medjai didn’t even wait for a nod, running into the passageway with a battle cry, his rifle raised as more of the dead grow closer. Henderson looks across the room at the nooks set two feet apart on the far wall, just big enough for them to duck under.

“O’Connell, you got any of that Dynamite left,” he asks, a plan beginning to form in his mind as the mummies start to work their way through Ardeth.

“Just one.” O’Connell follows his gaze, blue meeting gray for a moment as the other man catches on. “You better hope we get lucky on this.” Together, they grab the back of Jonathan’s shirt and haul him across the room, Henderson and Jonathan hunkering down in one nook while O’Connell threw a lit stick of Dynamite in the one next to them, diving to the side as it blew. “Everybody still alive?”

“Define alive.”

“Well, you’re still talking, so that’s a good sign that you weren’t blown to bits.”


	17. A Daring Rescue

AJ awoke due to a violent coughing fit, falling over onto her side and squeezing her eyes closed as she tried to breathe through it all. Gasping and sick to her stomach, she blinks the tears away and looks around her, unable to hold in her scream when she notices the mummies kneeling in front of her.

“Evy,” she cries out, wiggling away from them only to hit something hard. Looking over her shoulder at the obstacle, she’s met with the leg of the altar, able to see even more mummies kneeling on the other sides. They were forming a wide circle, bowing again and again as they started to chant. “Evy!”

“I’m up here,” Evy calls from above. It’s only then AJ notices the scrap of silk hanging over the edge of the altar, part of Evelyn’s nightgown. “I’m chained to the altar. Can you help?”

“Not unless I can get my hands on something sharp.” Her hands were bound behind her back with the remains of her shawl, the cotton tight enough to have her hands almost numb. AJ manages to sit up again, leaning against the altar with her knees drawn against her chest to avoid touching one of the priests.

_Lawrence, where are you?_

The fear begins to creep up on her; fear of what would happen to her friend, to  _her_ , and what might have happened to her husband. She was going to die here, she was sure of it, and she couldn’t even tell her son how much she loved him, how he was the one person in her life she knew would do extraordinary things. 

 _Tucker, my little monkey, I love you so much_.

She does nothing to stop the tears that slide down her cheeks, staring ahead of her at the creatures. She would have her chin up when death came and then she would meet her family again on the Last Day; she would be able to hug her parents and tell them of their grandson.

Beyond the mummies, a large shape begins to rise from the enormous pool of tar, shaping itself into the silhouette of a woman as it soars overhead. She stares at it in amazement and horror, almost certain that it was the soul of Anck-su-namun that would fill a vacant body.

“Allah, protect us,” she whispers in dread, wincing at a piercing scream that came soon after the form disappeared over AJ’s head. It was a scream that could send a cat into fits, high and croaking after centuries of disuse. Imhotep quickly walks to AJ’s side of the altar, a sacrificial knife in hand. “No!” She falls on her side again as she kicks out at him, her bare feet making contact with his knee. “Leave her alone!”

He snaps at her, the words spoken in ancient Egyptian, and then jerks her upright by the front of her blouse. This close to his face, she could make out the small parts of his flesh that were still decayed, gray against gold. AJ doesn’t falter in her attack, kicking out again and making contact with an area that apparently hurts mummies, too.

“Thank Allah for basic anatomy,” she grunts as she hits the floor, rising up on her knees and using the knife to cut through her shawl as Imhotep doubles over in pain.

“You girls had better be alive down there because I found the damn book,” a familiar voice calls out as AJ gets to her feet. Jonathan was standing at the top of the steps, waving the golden book proudly above his head.

“You didn’t find it all by yourself, you little toad,” another voice snapped, its owner appearing a few seconds later. “Baby, we’re never comin’ back to Egypt!”  _At least we agree on that much_. “Look out!” AJ hisses in pain as she’s grabbed by her hair, Imhotep roughly shoving her out of his way as he starts for the two men.

“Open the book, you idiots,” Evy shouts,” it’s the only way to kill him! You have to open the book and read the inscription.” With a grumbled curse, AJ gets to her feet again for what seems like the thousandth time, yanking on one of the heavy manacles that has Evy bound to the table.

“How do I open these things,” she asks, trying to pry the metal open with no success.

“I’m not sure, I was unconscious when he put me here.” AJ grabs her fallen headpiece and pulls off one of the bobby pins she’d used to secure it, suddenly happy for all the times Jonathan’s boredom had led them all to picking locks around the museum. She wasn’t sure if the process was the same since the locks were completely different, but she was holding out hope.

“It’s locked,” Jonathan calls down to the women, frantically trying to force the cover open. “Where’s the key?”

“Inside his robes!” She slips the tips of the pin into the lock, trying to manipulate it and failing. The anatomy of the ancient lock was entirely different and her shaking hands certainly didn’t help her any. She was still trying when a cry sounded behind her seconds before a sword cut cleanly through the chain on one manacle. “O’Connell!”

“Ladies,” O’Connell grins smugly even as the other mummies start to attack at Imhotep’s command,” glad to see me?”

“I’ll be glad to see you when we’re out of this damned city,” AJ snaps, pushing one of the mummies away from her. In one fluid motion, O’Connell cuts through a mummy and the chains around Evy’s feet.

“Oh come on, you know you missed my smiling face.”  _Only Rick O’Connell could find humor in a situation like this_. She draws her fist back to punch another of the mummies when a sword decapitates it, a familiar cowboy boot kicking the flailing torso away.

“Lawrence!”

“Hello, beautiful,” he replies with a cocky grin.

“You’re alive!”

“Last I checked.” She wanted to hug him, to throw herself into his arms and never let him go again, but the mummies trying to murder them all were doing a good job of ruining the moment. “We need to talk about how we want to set up Dot’s nursery,” he says as he starts cutting through the priests. AJ rolls her eyes, picking up the knife and pressing her back against her husband’s, using it to defend him from behind.

“Could we talk about this at another time, dearest?” She shoves the knife through a mummy’s eyes socket, yanking it back out and kicking the creature away from her. “Perhaps when we’re on a boat back to America?”

“You see, I was thinkin’ we could paint the nursery a real pretty yellow color and then have the trim be that pastel pink Millie’s always going on about.”

“Now is really not the time, Lawrence!” They moved together, defending each other in synched motions that only came after spending years together. They didn’t have to stop and think about what the other would do, knowing when was the best time to duck or strike. “Besides, the nursery is already yellow.”

“No it’s not, remember? We painted it green before Tuck was born to go with a forest theme.” AJ grunts as she cuts through another of the priests, her thoughts circling a familiar room from childhood. It was pale yellow with pink trim, the ceiling the color of the sky in the evening; the floor was made up of dark wood that was smooth underfoot, the crib rested in the middle of the room, the color of cream with a canopy to keep out bugs and a handcrafted mobile above it.

“About that, I got to thinking when…. Well, when I thought I was going to be strangled to death by my dead ancestor.”

“About what?”

“About home, my home that’s not in Egypt or in Texas.”

“Baby, we don’t have houses anywhere else.” But she did, tucked away in the countryside where the rest of her family lived. A large house, the only real testament to the wealth the Jibade family had, white with dark blue shutters, and the stained glass windows in the attic.

“Lawrence, I want to move back to Yorkshire so I can see my cousins again.”

“Do what now?!” AJ turns, waiting for Lawrence to spear through the mummy he was dealing with. “Honey, that’s a big decision to make right now. Way bigger than deciding what color to paint a nursery.”

“I need this, though, I need to go home and properly grieve for my parents. I was so young when they died that I didn’t know how to deal with it all, and then I allowed it to turn into anger and resentment. I don’t want that anymore.” Lawrence opens his mouth, but a cry of pain cuts him off and they both turn to find the last of the mummies crushed under a heavy tombstone.

“Oh no,” O’Connell says sarcastically as he sits up,” you two finish your discussion.”


	18. Death on Swift Wings

_If I didn’t have bad luck, I’d have no luck at all_.

Apparently freeing Evy was the only spot of good luck they were going to get at the moment because they’d barely gotten her off the altar when a rhythmic chanting began, ten mummies marching out of a damn broom closet and lining up with their shields ready and their swords raised.

“This just keeps getting better and better,” O’Connell remarks, holding out his free arm to make Evy back up with him. AJ and Henderson raise their own weapons, not thrilled at yet another fight, but ready to just get it over with.

“Jonathan,” AJ states,” if we die because of your idiocy, then I will personally haunt your ass from now till eternity. Do something now!”

“Like what,” Jonathan snaps back, holding the book against his narrow chest. “This thing doesn’t exactly come with instructions, you know!”

“Finish the inscription that you started,” Evy yells at him,” then you can control them and we can have a small break!” Jonathan nods and scurries away from the coming battle, going further into the cemetery. “AJ, go make sure he doesn’t trip and knock himself out.”

“Why do I have to do it,” she asks, adjusting her grip on the knife’s hilt as her hand grows sweaty. “You’re the expert, not me!”

“Be that as it may, you’re the only one Imhotep won’t kill on sight and that can come in handy. Just stand in front of him and try to keep both of you alive!” AJ turns to face Lawrence, yanking him down by the front of his shirt so she could kiss him.

“You better survive this or I’ll find a way to bring you back so I can smother you myself.” He gives a nod, the determination burning in his eyes enough to give AJ the confidence she needed to leave him. “Jon, wait for me!” She chases after him, batting away cobwebs and jumping over a few of the crumbling tombstones until she’s beside her friend.

“Of all the people to come and help, I’ve got the one that’s even more useless than me when it comes to this thing,” he complains, gesturing at the hieroglyphics.

“Thanks, Jon, that really means a lot to me.” He rolls his eyes at her sarcasm, holding the book up so they could both get a look at it. Just like with the black book, this one has an inscription etched into the gold on the left of the lock, the characters as confusing as ever. “Okay, um, what does this one say?”

“No, I already read that one and it summoned our friends. It’s this one I’m stuck on.” He points at the glyph, an anck symbol with two squiggly lines above it and a bird on either side of it. She and Jonathan share a look and then shout in unison.

“Evy!”

“A little busy at the moment,” Evy returns, sounding breathless. AJ couldn’t make her out, but she recognized the sounds of someone being choked. There’s a hoarse scream and then Evy’s calling out. “What’s it look like?”

“What do you suppose that bird is,” Jonathan asks. AJ just gives him a look that suggested he was the dumbest man on the planet, shrugging when he continues to look at her hopefully. “Right, you’re useless. I don’t know why I keep forgetting that.”  _The second I get my hands on a shoe, I’m smacking him with it_. “It’s- It’s some kind of bird, Evy! A stork!”

“ _A-Ahmenophus!_ ”

“Oh yeah,” AJ nods, she and Jon sharing a faint smile.

“Yeah, the squiggles threw me off,” Jonathan admits, coming to a stop. “ _Hootash im Ahmenophus!”_  When they look up from the book again, they spot Imhotep a few feet away from them and the soldier mummies with their weapons raised, waiting on an order. Imhotep turns his back on the pair, growling an order at the soldiers. “ _Fa-Kooshka  
Anck-su-namun!_ ”

The soldiers turn and march off obediently, but the happiness of that is short lived when Imhotep turns and starts advancing on the pair. “Oh boy,” AJ mutters, moving protectively in front of Jonathan.

“AJ, what do we do now?”

“Uh…. Hope that we’re not brutally murdered.”

“Short and sweet, I like it.” They take two steps backwards with every step Imhotep takes forward, forced to stop when Jon’s back hits the wall. “Trapdoors! Evy fell through one when we were being chased by the scarabs, so maybe I can find one now!”

“Get to looking, then!” She can hear him scrambling to find the trapdoor, but Imhotep was getting closer and she doubted that stabbing him in the face would actually help her any.

“New plan, get out of his way!”

“What, why?” Jon doesn’t respond, shoving her out of the way right as Imhotep reached out and grasped Jon by the throat, picking him up and pinning him against the wall. For a split second AJ thought Jonathan had finally cracked under the pressure, then she realized he’d cracked long ago. As Imhotep tightened his hold, Jonathan reached into the robe and pocketed the key. “An idiot savant, who knew?”

O’Connell and Lawrence raced over, O’Connell’s sword cutting Imhotep’s arm off at the bicep as Lawrence helped his wife to her feet; Jonathan fell to the ground hard, the book skittering a few feet away from him. “Let’s go, pal,” O’Connell taunts as Imhotep turns to face him. “I bet you couldn’t fight your way out of a paper bag without your right arm.” With a growl, Imhotep grabs a handful of O’Connell’s shirt and tosses him away. “Of course he’s left handed….”

“Oh, that looked like it hurt.”

“Yeah,” Lawrence frowns, pulling Jonathan up,” I better go help out with that.” Imhotep was already halfway to O’Connell, screwing his arm back in place, when Lawrence dashes off.

“Are you okay, Jon?”

“Ask me later,” he grunts, holding up the little box that doubled as a key. “Evy, I’ve got it!” AJ watches the fight anxiously as Evy rushes to join them, Lawrence and O’Connell getting the absolute hell beat out of them.

“Keep him busy,” Evy orders, turning the key in the lock and opening the book. “AJ, you watching the fight isn’t going to change any of the outcomes.” She bites her lip, knowing that she wouldn’t stand a chance against Imhotep’s strength and she couldn’t help translate anything. She was basically useless in a situation like this and it bothered her more than anything else.

“I have to do something, Evy,” AJ states firmly, looking around the room for a weapon better suited to her. That’s when she saw them, the two black heels that she thought she’d lost for good. “Say I’m a genius.”

“Can I have a reason first?”

“Nope.” AJ takes off to the right, dropping to her knees and sliding between one of the soldier’s legs before getting to her feet and grabbing the shoes. “I knew these things would come in handy.” With both shoes in her grasp and the knife tucked under her arm, she races back to her family.

“Oh, not the shoes again,” Jonathan groans, shaking his head. AJ ignores him, waiting for Imhotep to stop moving and then chunking one of the heels at him. His bald head snaps forward when the first shoe collides with his skull, the skin splitting open to reveal the rot inside.

“Nobody gets to hit my husband!” She throws the next shoe, but Imhotep bats this one away.  _I may not be the best fighter, but I’m too stubborn to back down now_. She charges forward as Imhotep throws Lawrence again, bending forward and tackling her ancestor to the ground. “Did you see that?!”

“I saw that!” AJ lets out a shouts as she’s sent flying through the air, hitting a pillar and tumbling back to the ground. Everything goes dark for a second, pain spreading everywhere; she couldn’t breathe without hurting and she was certain she had a concussion.

“Is that all you got,” she yelps, rolling onto her back. She half-expected to find Imhotep above her about the finish the job, but there’s only the cracked ceiling. Carefully, she rises to her feet and leans heavily against the pillar, looking for the people she cared about. Jon and Evy were still flipping through the book, O’Connell was getting strangled, and Lawrence….  _Lawrence!_

“I’ve found it,” Evy shouts triumphantly. AJ didn’t care at the moment, she only wanted to find her husband amongst the rubble. She nearly collapses when she moves away from the pillar, the world spinning around her and a few of the obstacles appearing alongside doubles.

“I’m gonna be sick.” She clutches at her stomach, dropping to her knees and dry heaving beside one of the fallen statues.

“ _Kadeesh mal, kadeesh mal! Pared oos, pared oos!_ ” Everyone looks to the stairs as a sudden howling wind picked up, a pale blue, translucent chariot and horses come charging down the stairs, Seti’s spirit whipping the horses until they had run completely through Imhotep, disappearing with a blinding flash.

AJ winces and covers her eyes, her hair whipping around her face for a few seconds longer until it suddenly goes still. “What—” She straightens up as well as she can, blinking to get her eyes to adjust again.

“Hey,” Lawrence coughs from somewhere close by,” did he just get run over or am I seeing things?” She peers over the statue, finding Lawrence on the other side, blood running down the side of his head and soaking into the white cotton of his shirt. “Hiya, honey.” AJ makes a sound of annoyance, crawling around the statue and putting Lawrence’s head in her lap.

“Sweetie, can you walk?”

“Shall we find out?” AJ is the first one up, not quite steady on her feet, but at least Lawrence seems to have an easier time standing and stumbling over to the rest of the group. Everyone was huddled behind O’Connell, Jonathan clutching the golden book while AJ and Lawrence supported each other.

“I thought you said it was gonna kill him,” O’Connell gripes as Imhotep advances on them again. The mummy was furious as he stomped their way, only O’Connell’s sword through his belly making him stop with a pained gasp.

“He’s mortal,” Evy declares victoriously. Imhotep brings up a hand for everyone to see, covered in his own blood from the abdominal wound.

“That’s for kidnapping my girlfriend!” Imhotep stumbles back and falls into a detritus bog, the thick black liquid bubbling around him as he returns to his decayed state. He mumbles something in his language, the words deep and echoing as he sank further and further into the bog.

“Death is only the beginning.”


	19. A City in Ruins

“I vote we leave this place before anything else happens,” Lawrence says, swaying slightly on his feet from the head wound.  

“I’m with Henderson,” O’Connell agrees,” let’s get moving.” The group was just turning to face the exit when the ceiling and walls began to lower, sand pouring inside. “Race you guys to the camels!” AJ and Lawrence make up the rear, their bodies sore after the beatings they’d taken and Lawrence’s balance off.

“I hate this country.” AJ nods in agreement, breathless already and they were only climbing up the first set of stairs that led down to the cemetery, forced to pause in order to help Jon up when he tripped, the gold book sliding into a pool of tar.

“You lost the book,” Evy cries, running back just in time to see the book sink beneath the surface. “I can’t believe—”

“Not now, Evy!” AJ could feel her panic almost choking her, the adrenaline of the fight coming back to numb the pain and allow her to run faster. Together, she and Lawrence chase after the others, hot on their heels as the sand continues to fall and the ceiling gets lower.

 _If I’ve come this far only to be squashed, Allah and I are going to have a long talk_.

They’re all forced to bend at the waist as they duck through a doorway, entering a room full of treasure where Jonathan skidded to a stop. “Couldn’t we just,” he starts in a whine, letting out a yelp when Lawrence latches onto his arm and drags him after them.

“What did I tell you earlier,” O’Connell demands,” I said no touching things!” The sound of stone grinding against stone was nearly deafening as they all ducked under part of the collapsing city, almost on their hands and knees as they rolled through a shrinking doorway.

“O’Connell,” cried a panicked Beni, desperately crawling after them.

“Come on, hurry!” AJ and the others watch with tensed shoulders as Beni starts to crawl under the lowering ceiling, his fingers brushing O’Connell’s seconds before the doorway sinks into the sand and O’Connell is forced to yank his hand away or have it crushed. “Goodbye, Beni.”

“Go,” Lawrence shouts, keeping a tight hold on AJ’s wrist to keep from losing her. “Hot damn, I see daylight!” The group races towards the door, AJ letting out a sigh of relief when she’s able to straighten up and run properly through the collapsing city. “Whoa!” She’s jerked to the side as two massive pillars fall to the ground, narrowly missing AJ’s back.

As a matter of fact, all of the structures were crashing to the ground like dominoes, and a crevice split open behind them.  _It’s chasing us_ , AJ thought as she forced herself to keep pace with the others, the crevice continuing to split open just two feet behind her.

The camels were running too, like they were trying to see who the fastest was until Hamunaptra was half a mile behind them all. The group stops and turns as the city disappears, a mountain of sand shooting up into the air like a volcanic eruption, burying Hamunaptra as it showers down over the earth.

AJ allows herself to relax, the danger passed and her aches and pains beginning to make themselves known again. She felt like she’d been caught in the middle of a stampede; stabbing pains in her back, her lungs burning, her double vision coming back as she turned her gaze to her husband and realized there should only be one of him in front of her.

Jonathan’s scream of fright doesn’t help her relax any, all of them echoing him and then glaring at the person that had caused it. The Medjai was seated on one of the camels, looking no worse for wear after everything they had all been through, and more than a little amused at having scared all of them for the second time in less than a week.

“You bastard,” AJ breathes, a hand going to cover her racing heart. “You’re just determined to kill me, aren’t you?”

“I could not pass the opportunity up,” he smiles. With the turban removed, his dark hair fell to his shoulders in loose waves, a rich brown color nearly identical to AJ’s. “You all have earned the respect and gratitude of me and my people.”  _Unless that comes with a free trip to Hawaii, I’m not interested_.

“It was easy,” Jonathan states with a wave of his hand. O’Connell nods in agreement, one arm wrapped around Evy’s shoulders.  _Well, it’s about time those two decided to get together._  AJ’s been waiting on it to happen since that night on the barge and she’s proud that she’ll have someone to gossip with about men.

“May Allah smile upon you always.” He kisses his knuckles and presses them to his forehead before gesturing with them at the others. AJ returns the gesture respectfully, her upbringing not allowing her to do otherwise.

“And yourself, Artie.” Everyone makes a face at that, Ardeth arching a brow until Jonathan waves him off. “It sounded better in my head.” Smiling, Ardeth grasps the reigns of his camel and presses his heels into its side, riding further into the expansive desert. “Well, I guess we go home empty handed…. Again.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” O’Connell murmurs, turning and pulling Evy into a deep kiss that would make the poets jealous. Lawrence looks down at AJ with a cocky smile. She could read what he wanted to do without him even opening his mouth and it wasn’t about to happen.

“We’ve been married for five years,” she reminds him, walking over to a nearby camel. “You can hold off on kissing me until I’ve taken a shower and brushed my teeth.”

“It won’t be romantic if we do it that way,” he points out, grasping her hips and lifting her up on the saddle before climbing on behind her.

“Maybe not, but we won’t taste like sweat and blood either.” The others climb up onto camels as well, Lawrence getting the chance to take the lead this time around. It would be nice to get back to Texas where clean clothes were waiting, being able to hold her son in her arms and sing him his lullaby. She looks up at her husband when she feels his breath stir her tangled mane, his chest vibrating with his muffled laughter. “What is it?”

“It’s just that you said we wouldn’t get to ride off into the sunset and look what we’re doin’ now, honey.”

“Shut it, Larry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Turns out the best motivator for me to finish this chapter was my granny buying me Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and then saying I can have it once this is posted.


	20. Returning Home

It was a year later when the Henderson family parked their car in front of a country house, the three of them staring up at it with nearly identical expressions of excitement while the baby only played in her car seat. It was the biggest house they’ve ever seen with a fresh coat of paint and a wraparound porch that would be perfect for lazy evenings. The shutters were pulled back and the windows open to allow the house to air out, the stained glass windows of the attic still showing the mosaic of a vivid sunset.

“This is the Jibade family home, huh?”

“Yeah,” AJ nods, her nerves making her stomach ache. Her childhood lay on the other side of that heavy wooden door with the glass panels and she wasn’t so sure now that she was ready to embrace the bad with the good.

“You okay, baby?” She nods without taking her eyes off the house, swallowing hard.  _Can I actually walk through that door?_  “I’m gonna get the kids out, you join us when you’re ready.” She hears the car doors open and close, then the excited chatter of Tucker that faded as they grew closer to the house.

“Mom,  _Abbi_ , can you guys hear me because I really need some parental compassion right about now.” There was no answer, not that she expected there to be, but she still felt the sting of tears. “Alright, let’s get this over with.” She gets out of the car and makes her way up the two steps and then across the porch to the front door, resting her hand on the metal doorknob. It was warm under her hand, fitting perfectly now.

 _I used to have to use both hands to open this door, always so eager to run inside and show Mommy my newest find_.

She pushes the door open and steps into the impressive entryway, the space wide and open with a small table beside the door for car keys, a grand staircase directly across from the door that curved to become part of the second floor banister.

 _I was a little girl, running into my abbi’s arms and squealing as he twirled me around. We’d dance together in the parlor while Mommy played the piano and I’d watch them dance as the sky turned purple in the twilight; I’d sit in Abbi’s office and watch as he did paperwork or read with Mommy in the attic_.

Tucker comes running out of the parlor on the right, a little brown-haired girl chasing after him. A familiar woman comes next, her hair swept to the side with a pair of round sunglasses keeping the waves out of her oval face. Wearing a chiffon slip dress and a pale green tassel necklace, Emmeline Brae was the definition of beautiful.

“It’s weird being back here, isn’t it,” she greets, coming forward to wrap AJ in a hug. AJ has missed her cousin; glad she could finally give her a real hug instead of penning out another letter.

“Yeah,” AJ nods,” I just keep remembering my parents.” They pull apart, Millie taking a second to get a good look at AJ. She couldn’t look that well after the trip here and her recent pregnancy, dressed simply in a white dress with small white beads sewn all over the silk that twinkled in the light whenever she moved.

“How was your trip? Come into the parlor and tell me everything!” AJ follows with only some reluctance, ready to fall onto her bed and sleep for at least a month after the trip to Yorkshire. The parlor doors are slid open, a cry of,”  _Surprise!”_  making AJ jump backwards with a yelp. There was a crowd of people cramped in the room, all of them holding champagne flutes, simple glass tumblers of whisky, or water.

“What’s this?”

“A welcome home present,” Evy answers smartly as she steps forward, holding a sleepy child in her arms. “Millie thought it would be the best way to make your parent’s spirits were kept alive.” AJ looks around her in shock, taking in vaguely familiar people she knew were relatives or friends of the family; Lawrence, Jonathan, and O’Connell were huddled together near the front of the room, each sporting a grin.

“This is great, you guys, thank you.” She takes a glass of water from her cousin, smiling down at the little blonde boy that turned his head just enough to look at AJ. He wasn’t quite yet one and he had his father’s blue eyes, already tanned after spending time outside. “This must be the little guy you wrote me about. What’s his name?” Evy had stubbornly refrained from telling her friend, stating she’d reveal it when AJ came to visit.

“Alexander.” AJ presses her lips together for a moment to keep the tears at bay at the name, knowing her uncle would be happy. “Rick and I wanted to name him after someone dear to us, so we settled on Alexander Reese O’Connell. Is that okay?”

“It’s perfect.”

“And what about your newest edition,” Millie demands with her hands on her hips. “Henderson refused to tell any of us and Tucker would only run off with Clementine.” Clem was Millie’s baby girl, the same age as Tucker and determined to make the poor boy like the pink crayon.

“Her name is Dorothea, but she seems to prefer Dot.” The sound of giggles gave AJ a split second to turn before Tucker launched himself upwards, AJ catching him in her arms and hugging the three year old tightly. As she pressed her cheek against his soft hair, she couldn’t help but think her parents would be proud of her.

 _Keep watching over me, guys, and I’ll see you again one of these days_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Abbi = Dad/Daddy in Arabic.
> 
> You can find Millie’s and AJ’s outfits here: http://www.polyvore.com/treasures_in_egypt/collection?id=5408723
> 
> The always wonderful thewhoreofcookies over on Polyvore created Millie’s, so make sure to tell her what a great job she did!
> 
> The attic mosaic I mentioned was inspired by this one: http://orig05.deviantart.net/7f3b/f/2009/181/5/e/stained_glass_mosaic_red_sun_by_reflectionsshattered.jpg

**Author's Note:**

> Outfits: http://www.polyvore.com/treasures_in_egypt/collection?id=5408723
> 
> AJ: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7HXHybVnWqA/UlfwOatFRGI/AAAAAAAAmwU/A3-m04GC7ec/s1600/donya+samir+ghanem.jpg


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